President Is Head Of State 24/7

THE Government of the Republic of Namibia finds the column that appeared in The Namibian of Friday, 10 July 2009 under the heading ‘Is the Pohamba Campaign Paid for by the Taxpayers?’ provocative, irrelevant and misleading.

Based on the newspaper’s perceptions of the President’s visits to Hardap and Omaheke regions last week, the column implies that the President of the Republic of Namibia is using taxpayers’ money for political campaigning. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, the President ‘shall be the Head of State and of the Government and the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force’. The Constitution, furthermore, states that the ‘executive power of the Republic of Namibia shall vest in the President and the Cabinet’.The constitutional responsibilities of the President of the Republic of Namibia dictate that the incumbent shall be on duty 24 hours per day and seven days per week. This, in effect, means that H. E. President Hifikepunye Pohamba wears his hat as Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force 24/7. This same constitutional responsibility makes it impossible for the President to separate his party’s political responsibilities from his official government responsibilities. The President visited the two regions to address official developmental issues. The paper can inform itself of this by perusing the President’s written statements during his visit. He also used the opportunity to address party-political issues, exactly because his position as Head of State and Government does not allow him to temporarily replace his hat as Head of State with that of President of the ruling party. Therefore, the President of the Republic of Namibia has not done anything wrong, but has only fulfilled his responsibility as Head of State.Mbeuta Ua-NdjarakanaPermanent SecretaryMinistry of InformationNote: If you are correct in your statement, then does the same 24/7 rule apply to his delegation as well? Surely he is on ‘call’ as the President in event of emergencies or matters of national import as one would expect, not necessarily working, but also has his private as opposed to official time? We doubt that anyone, including Cabinet Ministers, can access him 24/7 without a very good reason! What about the S&Ts for those who accompany him? There is also the fact that Namibia is officially in recession, and surely one can expect non-essential business to be kept to a minimum (ie there are other senior figures in Swapo who could have opened the Swapo offices, rather than the President travelling at taxpayers expense). The President may not have done anything wrong in the Ministry’s eyes, but in the eyes of many this is a moral issue and a bad judgement call. – Ed