Kuugongelwa-Amadhila urges parliament to ensure oversight delivers results, not just reports

National Assembly speaker Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila says parliamentary oversights must yield results and not only reports.

She said this at the parliamentary women caucus meeting at Swakopmund on Saturday.

“Parliament has the authority to enact laws and to direct policy. But authority without accountability is incomplete. What this caucus must advocate for and what I believe must become a defining feature of our work, is a strengthened oversight mechanism: one that does not merely demand reports, but demands results.

“When a parliamentary committee conducts an oversight visit and
produces recommendations, those recommendations must not gather dust,” she said.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said there must be a system of follow-through – one in which implementing institutions report on progress, where shortfalls are interrogated, and where failure to meet targets is met with concrete action, not only to achieve the desired outputs but to deliver transformational impacts.

She argued that oversight without implementation is observation and parliament must move beyond it.

She said lawmakers must ensure that parliament itself is equipped to evaluate laws and policies through a gender lens.

Gender-responsive budgeting and gender impact assessments, she said, are not technical luxuries, but essential instruments of good governance.

“Every piece of legislation, every policy directive, every budget allocation must be
examined for its implications for women and girls. Where gaps are identified, the work of this caucus is to ensure that those gaps are closed through amendments to existing laws, introduction of new legislation, and deliberate inclusion of measurable targets within the programmes of implementing institutions,” she said.

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