The Office of the Prime Minister says the Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM) must generate its own income to become financially self-reliant and less dependent on state funding.
Executive Director Gladice Pickering said this objective forms part of ongoing reforms to address underfunding and instability at the institute. “The objective with our engagements now is to enable the institution to generate their own income, to become self-reliant and self-sustaining,” she said.
Pickering confirmed that NIPAM had been underfunded in the past but said government had begun engaging directly with its management to find solutions. “NIPAM has been underfunded, it is true and we have now as going forward as an initiative we have had a discussion with the NIPAM management,” she said.
As part of the changes, NIPAM will now present its own budgetary requirements directly to Treasury during mid-year submissions. “We have decided to invite NIPAM to our mid-year budget presentations for them to go and present their own needs and to Treasury,” Pickering said.
She added that reforms would also cover the institution’s programmes, with a review of the curriculum to ensure alignment with the skills and training needed in the public service. “We are going to relook the programme or revisit the programme of NIPAM to ensure that NIPAM has the curriculum is revisited to make it more responsive to the needs and that was also highlighted in this report,” she said.
Pickering noted that NIPAM’s facilities had been underutilised and would now be repositioned as a centre for training, conferences and workshops. “Going forward we are going to make use of NIPAM as far as possible in terms of training, in terms of hosting conferences, workshops and so forth,” she said.
She said government was also following up on outstanding payments owed to the institute. “We keep on following up on that on a monthly basis to ensure that there are no outstanding amounts, we keep track of the data age analysis,” she said.
On governance matters, Pickering said the leadership instability highlighted in previous parliamentary reports had been resolved. She further announced that NIPAM had introduced a new public service change programme aimed at transforming the behaviour and mindset of civil servants through targeted training.
