The Erongo Regional Council says Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) should go beyond reporting news and play a greater role in educating communities on issues such as education infrastructure, urbanisation and the region's economic opportunities.
The Chief Regional Officer Sem Ntelamo shared his sentiments when the NBC Director-General and her Senior Leadership Team visited the Governor's Office in Swakopmund.
The Council appealed to NBC to strengthen its presence in the region and help bring development issues closer to communities.
"At the moment we are battling education infrastructure in the region, and you can tell, urbanisation has been moving at a much faster pace, so it has overgrown the infrastructure that we have. So we need space for children to go to school, but then we don't have that. So how do we bring, we are a regional council, how do we bring such voices to central government? We need the NBC."
On behalf of the Governor, the Council's Chairperson Lazarus Kanelombe commended the broadcaster but added that there should be a focus on the boy child.
"You go to the bars; you find them there early in the morning. You go to prisons; it's only the boy child. How do we go to them? The girl child, I think we are 60% there. But can we have a programme for the boy child?"
NBC Director-General Menesia Muinjo said the proposals align with the broadcaster's mandate to provide information, promote nation-building and respond to the needs of its audiences.
"We have to see where we can really improve in honour of the NBC mandate and what is expected of the nation in terms of information dissemination, also tying in well with the NDP6 and the general development of the country. We also have the mandate of uniting the nation sometimes because of the messages that come through our different platforms, television, radio and digital platforms. And then also to thank the leadership because the content we have been getting from the region is of such a critical nature because without content, NBC doesn't exist."
"We have introduced a programme called Know Your Region, where the governors or the regional councillors come on the air to explain or to talk about the projects and developments taking place in their regions, because what we found out is that people complain, but they don't complain because they really want to complain; they complain because they don't have the information," said NBC HoD for Radio Services, Suoma Negumbo.
Both sides say stronger collaboration could ensure that development challenges and opportunities in Erongo receive greater national attention.