‘We must pray for Hage’

‘We must pray for Hage’ Church leaders this morning hosted a birthday breakfast for President Hage Geingob who turned 76 today. The breakfast was organised by Ludwig Beukes of the Council of Churches (CCN) and attended by a clergy of other religions in Windhoek. However, the breakfast was originally arranged to bring the scourge of gender-based violence, rape, corruption, crime under the attention of the president and his ministers. Meanwhile, a guest speaker at the birthday breakfast, Errol Naidoo of the Family Policy Institute in South Africa, urged the Namibian government to do everything in its power to encourage marriages to remain intact for the health and welfare of children and the benefit of society.
According to him, the social evils are as result of a failing family structure hence he said the restoration and maintenance of the family must be the ultimate goal of governments.
Naidoo also argued that the breakdown of the family structure is a major contributor to economic decline which ultimately increases the burden on social welfare budgets as broken families are more dependent on the state.
“The social chaos caused by family breakdown is well documented. However, most governments lack the political will to identify and address the root causes of family breakdown and dysfunction. It is therefore in the interest of governments to formulate and develop public policy that protects and strengthens the family unit,” Naidoo said.

JEMIMA BEUKES