While the nation was sleeping on Wednesday, members of the National Assembly were in the ‘august House’ dissecting the national budget for the new financial year.
Discussions between members of parliament (MPs) young and old kicked off at 14h30 and dragged on until 05h00 yesterday morning.
Some ‘honourable members’ with chronic conditions asked that the session be adjourned so they could go home to take their medicine, but this request was overruled by the majority who wanted to push on until sunrise.
By the time the last ‘honourable member’ was done giving their contribution and the speaker called it a day, some MPs could not decide between heading home or grabbing the next business day by the horns.
Deputy minister of education, innovation, youth, sport, arts and culture Dino Ballotti said he did not know whether to finally go to bed or brush his teeth and head straight to the office.
He described the all-nighter as “a marathon session”.
“5am club! What a marathon session! Do I go home and sleep or just brush my teeth and go to the office?” he asked his followers on social media.
Popular Democratic Movement leader McHenry Venaani yesterday told The Namibian it was the longest session he has sat through in his 23 years in parliament.
“We’ve gone up to 03h00, but 05h00 is a new thing,” he said.
Venaani said some MPs take medication for chronic diseases and wanted to adjourn at 03h00 to reconvene at 10h30, but the majority members opted to carry on and finish the debate.
For the past week, National Assembly sessions ran late while MPs debated various ministries’ budget allocations.
The all-nighter was due to the appropriation bill requiring discussion as the National Assembly is set for a recess next week.
New acting National Assembly secretary Esther Kaapanda confirmed this to The Namibian yesterday.
She said today’s session would convene at 09h00 and run until 14h30.
“The extended hours are to ensure we finalise the appropriation bill before the House goes into recess next week. It is not unusual for National Assembly sessions to go on until late – in this case till the morning hours,’ Kaapanda said.
‘NO OVERTIME’
Kaapanda said MPs do not get paid overtime as attending these sessions is part of their duties.
Among the heated debates was the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development’s budget allocation of N$2.7 billion for the 2025/26 financial year.
The ministry came under fire for failing to render services to residents and for building houses that are left unoccupied.
Swapo MP Marius Sheya has called for residents’ historical debts to be written off and for prepaid water metres to be installed for residents who are unable to afford conventional water meters.
Affirmative Repositioning member of parliament George Kambala said urbanisation does not imply development, hence he called for the implementation of a regional township proposal.
Urban and rural development minister James Sankwasa attributed the ministry’s challenges to big debts owed to local authorities.
He said the housing issue is being addressed, but it is complex and requires all stakeholders’ collaboration.
National Democratic Party leader Martin Lukato, who also pulled the all-nighter, asked Sankwasa when the ministry would address the scarcity of land, particularly serviced land.
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