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Friday 18th of July 2003 With 29.4 million people of a total of 42 million HIV positive persons living in sub-Saharan Africa, companies had to improve on their medical aid plans for employees to prevent losing the economically productive population groups due to HIV/Aids. During a two-day forum on economic sustainability of Aids prevention and care in Windhoek, both the private sector and government representatives discussed needs and ways to put these goals into practice. In Namibia 24.4 % of adults in the 15 to 49 age group are HIV positive, being 12.9% or 250 000 of the total population of 1.82 million. The introduction of anti-retroviral treatment (ART) would reduce maternal orphans by 25% by the year 2015. Up to now, Namibia has 82 000 orphans over half of them due to their parents having died from Aids. At the beginning of this month, several government hospitals in Namibia started with free ART for HIV positive people.
500 000 Voter Registrations Expected The directorate of elections will be satisfied if 500 000 voters in total will have registered by the end of next month. During the first week of registrations 123 181 voters came to register countrywide. Briefing media on the latest results, the outgoing director of elections, Mr Joram Rukambe on Wednesday said many voters shoed up at wrong constituencies, produced the wrong identification documents and proof of their stay in their constituency for the past 12 months, which delayed registration. Another problem was the "inability of registration teams to interpret the law correctly, thereby denying voters the opportunity to register", particularly for the municipal elections. Rukambe announced a third relaxation of requirement to register. Citizens now only need one instead of two people to identify them. People born outside Namibia of Namibian parents, can now register by producing only their new, blue ID card. Rukambe further said that "some individuals or political parties" applied irregular practices by giving their documentary proof to other people to register. Additionally some people or parties were found to transport eligible voters by bus from rural areas into towns to register for local authority elections in the Kunene and Caprivi Regions, which was contradicting Section 96 of the Electoral Act.
New Electricity Licence For The North The Electricity Control Board (ECB) awarded an electricity supply and distribution licence to a new company, Central Northern Regional Electricity Distribution, (Cenored), this week. With the anticipated changes in the electricity supply industry (ESI) in Namibia, five such regional electricity distributors (RED’s) will be established. The first one was Nored, which is already operational in the north. Cenored has shareholders in Tsumeb. Grootfontein, Otjiwarongo, Khorixas, Outjo, Kamanjab, the Kunene and Otjozondjupa regional councils, as well as NamPower. Okakarara has also notified the ECB of its intention to join Cenored. RED’s will be able to more effectively manage the rural electrification programme of the ministry of mines and energy in their respective areas and in accordance with the rural electrification master plan. RED’ also supply pre-paid meters and electricity cards. |
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