“You are both the father and the mother of the ICT (information and communication technology) ministry. You mothered the ICT sector. Know that you came and you did your best,” so said the Deputy Minister of ICT Stanley Simataa during a farewell dinner hosted for the Minister of ICT, Joel Kaapanda on Monday evening.
Kaapanda retires after the inauguration of Namibia’s third president and new Cabinet on March 21.
A seasoned diplomat, Kaapanda was the first minister to head Namibia’s first ministry of ICT when it was created in 2008. He joined parliament in 2002 after his return from diplomatic posting in India where he was Namibia’s first High Commissioner from 1995 to 2002. He served as Minister of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development between 2002 and 2005 and Minister of Works, Transport and Communication between 2005 and 2008.
“As you take your well-deserved rest, please do so as a soldier, march into your retirement in confidence. The day you feel alone, call some of us, we would drive to the village where we would congregate and reflect,” said Simataa.
Simataa said he would forever remain thankful to Kaapanda for having shown the young guard the ropes. “Some of us were very wet under the collar. We wanted to run, but the minister kept telling us ‘hold, don’t run too fast’,” he said.
Lazarus Jacobs, the chairperson of the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN), who organised the farewell dinner, described Kaapanda as no ordinary minister and reminisced over how the outgoing minister had shown eagerness to learn the complex technical details of the sector.
“I remember at the strategic meeting of CRAN, where the minister was invited to make the opening remarks. I thought he would leave immediately after the speech, but he stayed. So I thought he would leave after lunch.
He altered his programme and stayed with us throughout the workshop duration,” said Jacobs, who described Kaapanda as “a humble man, willing to laugh at himself”.
In his farewell remarks, Kaapanda said he is proud to have steered the ministry to record achievements such as having Namibia connected to the West Africa Cable System – an ultra high capacity fibre optic submarine cable system that links South of Africa and Europe as well as to the South Atlantic Cable System.
The creation of the communication regulator is another achievement is the would be one of the things he would remember most from his time as Namibia’s first ICT minister.
Kaapanda also praised Namibia’s mobile penetration, saying there is now 100 percent mobile penetration. “Even old people can SMS,” he said.
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