//Kharas governor vexed over exclusion from meeting

//KHARAS governor Lucia Basson has expressed disappointment at being excluded from a meeting called to brief education deputy minister Anna Nghipondoka on academic performance and challenges.

In her welcoming speech at a separate meeting to discuss the new school curriculum held on Monday at Keetmanshoop, the governor said she was “perplexed” by her exclusion from the deputy minister’s debriefing meeting.

//Kharas regional education officials organised the debriefing meeting, which was held hours earlier that day with the education deputy minister.

“The debriefing meeting should have happened at my office,” she said, adding that such a meeting in the region without her presence was tantamount to a “breach of protocol”.

“I regarded [it] as a very important meeting, and must have attended it, as a representative of the president (Hage Geingob), who appointed me,” she said.

According to her, she was only given a programme detailing the deputy minister’s visit to the region yesterday morning.

Nghipondoka, on her part, said she understood the governor’s disappointment. She, however, added that there was a misunderstanding which let to the governor’s exclusion form the meeting.

“It was a human error,” she noted. The deputy minister commended Basson for taking her exclusion from the debriefing meeting positively, as she did not refuse to give a welcoming message as well as introducing her as the keynote speaker at the stakeholders’ meeting later. Nghipondoka was on a one-day visit to the region on Monday to talk about the new school curriculum with education officials and other stakeholders.