Southern African parliaments are urged to tighten oversight on public spending, as concerns over corruption, debt, and financial mismanagement continue to threaten development across the region.
Members of the Southern African Development Community Organisation of Public Accounts Committees (SADCOPAC) are in Swakopmund for a three-day workshop.
The aim is to provide training to strengthen parliamentary oversight and accountability in public finance management.
The National Assembly Speaker, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, called for stronger accountability systems and warned that oversight without action is meaningless.
She stressed that public accounts committees must go beyond simply checking financial procedures and instead focus on whether government spending delivers a real impact on citizens.
The training will include sessions on illicit financial flows in the extractive industry sector, which the speaker believes are among the most pressing governance challenges in the region.
"In too many instances, the revenues generated by those resources have not translated into commensurate development for our people. Illicit financial flows, transfer pricing abuse, and opacity in extractive-sector contracts deprive our governments of revenue that should be funding development for their people through various infrastructures and other services. Public accounts committees have a critical role to play in demanding transparency in resource revenue mobilisation and management, in scrutinising audit findings related to the extractive sector, and in collaborating with revenue authorities, financial intelligence units and anti-corruption agencies to close the loopholes through which public resources continue to be lost."
The SADCOPAC Vice Chairperson, Nomvula Ponco, said the training is designed to equip newly elected members of parliament with the skills needed to effectively oversee government expenditure.
"In each of these sessions, they are designed to answer one simple question: how do I, as a new or a retaining public accounts committee member, do my job effectively from day one? Honourable delegates, the people of the SADC region do not have the luxury of waiting five years for us to learn they need accountability now; they need transparency now; they need public accounts committees that function effectively from the first sitting of Parliament. SADCOPEC has built a system, peer review, plus post-election training to deliver exactly that."
The training brings together parliamentarians, auditors-general, civil society organisations, and financial oversight institutions from across Southern Africa.