WINDHOEK: The Secretary-General (SG) of the Swapo Party is confident that the upcoming Fifth Swapo-Party Congress will be productive due to documents discussed and adopted at its first National Policy Conference.

Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana made the statement during the official closing ceremony of the first-ever Swapo-Party National Policy Conference that ended here yesterday.

It started on Monday.

Iivula-Ithana said she has no doubt that similar to this conference, the congress shall be pre-occupied with the search for solutions to improve the living standards of their people through effective services and the growing of the economy.

She stated that the process leading to the policy conference was all inclusive of all Swapo-Party structures that were consulted and made inputs into the policy research papers.

Iivula-Ithana said the conference has clearly shown that to strengthen the organic unity of the party, they should pay attention to leadership development, political education, gender equality, and pioneer and youth development.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry’s chief forester for the central regions yesterday said she is concerned about a veld fire which has been raging near Otavi since last Friday.

Helena Lutombi told Nampa in an interview that a large piece of farmland in the area between Otavi and the Ohorongo Cement Factory has been destroyed due to the fire.

She could not say exactly how much vegetation had been destroyed by yesterday.

Lutombi said her team of foresters and a number of commercial farmers are attempting to extinguish it, but it is being fuelled by winds and dry grass.

It is suspected that the fire might have been started by a charcoal worker working at one of the farms, or a commercial farmer who had been attempting to clear his land.