Parliamentary standing committee on constitutional and legal affairs chairperson Kletus Karondo says the National Assembly has included sign language as part of the languages to be used in parliament.
Karondo says the motion was tabled in the National Assembly by deputy minister for disability affairs Alexia Manombe-Ncube following a petition by representatives of the Namibia National Association of the Deaf.
He says the motion and petition calling for the recognition of sign language as one of the national languages and the appointment of a sign language interpreter for live parliamentary debates were referred to the parliamentary standing committee for investigation and a report.
“The demands were two-fold: first the recognition of sign language as one of the official languages and, secondly, the appointment of sign language interpreters in government institutions as the need may arise.”
“The committee informed the mover and petitioners that in recognising that communication was a human right, the National Assembly, in its new rules, inserted sign language as part of the languages in the House,” says Karondo.
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