NAMIBIA will be sending a military peacekeeping contingent to Lesotho to help quell tensions in that country, information minister Tjekero Tweya announced yesterday.

Lesotho has been experiencing political unrest and violence after an army commander and two senior officers were killed in a shoot-out at an army barracks in Maseru last month. This happened two years after the killing of the former Lesotho Defence Force commander, brigadier Maaparankoe Mahao, in June 2015.

Tweya made the announcement during a media briefing on last week's Cabinet resolutions in Windhoek.

International relations minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said Namibia will send 250 soldiers to support the Southern African Development Community (SADC) contingency force in Lesotho.

She said this was done through a request by SADC for member states to provide military and diplomatic support to existing efforts in that country.

“The mission is based on the programme of SADC,” she said, adding that all the necessary costs would be covered by the regional body. Nandi-Ndaitwah said a SADC oversight committee was already in Lesotho and the situation was busy stabilising.

Namibians who are part of the oversight committee in Lesotho are international relations deputy director Vasco Sampofu, colonels Japhet Onemutshi Iiyambo and Mathew Shipulwa from the defence ministry, police deputy commissioner Joseph Shikongo and senior manager of the Namibia Central Intelligence Service, Esegile Nguvauva.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said the military operation will wait until proper preparations have been made for them in Lesotho.

“The oversight committee is on the ground and things are stabilising. However, we are still trying to find a permanent solution to the issue of Lesotho that has been going on for a long time,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said.

At yesterday's Cabinet briefing, Tweya­ also said Cabinet has endorsed amendments to the Public Enterprises Governance Act of 2006 to include the hybrid governance model. He said the bill has been referred to the Cabinet committee on legislation for scrutiny before being tabled in the National Assembly.