The parliament will end the year without a single bill becoming law beyond the national budget - a historic low in legislative output since Namibia's independence 35 years ago.
Although six bills were tabled during the year, none were passed in the parliament, apart from the national budget in April and its mid-year amendment last month.
This poor performance haunts the administration of president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who used her state of the nation address (Sona) in April to promise the parliament would finalise 11 key pieces of legislation this year.
Yet the parliament has now closed its doors for the year without passing any of them.
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The president has accused opposition parties of deliberately delaying sessions due to prolonged debates.
"The parliament has been sitting for the past eight months and no single law has been passed, and if you are following, the debates are just questions and motions deliberately, in a way to paralyse the parliament in doing its work," she said on Sunday during a Swapo Party Youth League meeting at Mariental.
The president encouraged parliamentarians to up their game and make her job easy, saying she is ready to deliver on promises she made by passing important bills on time and without delay.
She expressed disappointment that the mental health and land bills were not passed despite support from the majority of parliamentarians.
National Assembly spokesperson Sacky Kadhikwa this week confirmed to The Namibian that only two bills, which were budgets, were passed by this year's parliament.
"The eighth parliament has considered and deliberated on a range of national matters, including petitions, motions, and six tabled bills - two passed and four remaining on the order paper," he said.
Over the past 35 years, the number of bills passed in Namibia has shown a decline. During the early post-independence period (1990-1999) under former president Sam Nujoma, legislative activity was high, often exceeding 30 bills per year and peaking at 36 in 1994.
With the transition to former president Hifikepunye Pohamba (2005 to 2014), legislative output fell sharply, with several years passing fewer than 10 bills.
Brief recoveries occurred in 2009/10 under Pohamba and later in 2018/19 under former president Hage Geingob and vice president Nangolo Mbumba, when the number of bills passed increased slightly.
Here follows the number of laws passed in the past five years: 2020 (8), 2021 (4), 2022 (16), 2023 (23) and 12 last year.
This was partly due to pressure from international actors who threatened sanctions if Namibia did not close loopholes in combating financial crimes such as money laundering. In total, the seventh National Assembly passed 65 bills during its five-year term from 2020 to 2025.
Swanu of Namibia president Evilastus Kaaronda says the parliament did not only fail to pass more bills, but also went on recess with unanswered questions from opposition parties to ministers.
Some of these questions were posed in April, he says.
"Sometimes parliamentarians spend about three hours discussing things like posing of questions, the tabling of motions and ministers giving ministerial statements.
"We spend almost every day between Tuesday and Wednesday on specific issues that are not particularly substantive, or people discussing who said what and in what context it was said, or we spend more time on points of order," he says.
Kaaronda says if the work of the parliament remains unchanged, it will not bring Namibians any benefit, adding there is a need to change how the parliament functions.
"We don't start at 14h30 as per the rules, we start at 14h45, almost 15h00, and then we knock off at 17h45.
"We are always delayed in the time we must commence the parliament sessions. I think there is a problem with the way we work," he says.
Former parliamentarian Mike Kavekotora says the parliament was sleeping on duty.
"In view of the fact that we have a new administration, with high expectations from the nation, that is not a good performance whatsoever. They need to pull up their socks. What they did this year in terms of passing bills is a miserable performance," he says. Ex-legislator Jerry Ekandjo says this is the first time in Namibian history the parliament failed to pass a single law.
"They only passed one bill. In a year. They only passed the appropriation and the amendment to the appropriation, which is just an attachment to the main bill," he says.
Ekandjo says when he watches parliament sessions, parliamentarians only argue among themselves about immaterial issues.
Former Popular Democratic Movement parliamentarian Maximalliant Katjimune over the weekend said the problem is that the parliament has drifted away from its core function of lawmaking, and has instead become a "question-and-answer" house.
"The parliament ought to debate and pass laws which speak to the developmental and social needs of the country. It assists no one if the parliament spends more than half its time in question-and-answer sessions regarding issues that can be solved by regional and local authorities or government departments," he said.
Institute for Public Policy Research director Graham Hopwood says it's been a slow start for an administration that promised to hit the ground running.
There are clear signs that the legislative process is accelerating, with more bills expected to reach the National Assembly early next year, he says.
"Some delays were inevitable as a new administration needed time to assess the policy landscape and set its priorities. I expect a far more active legislative agenda in 2026," Hopwood says.
One aspect that the new administration has to address is why bills take so long to draft, he says.
Public policy analyst Marius Kudumo says the issue indicates a lack of urgency.
"Either the executive organ of the state or the members of parliament did not submit bills for consideration," he says.
"They must focus on lawmaking intended to improve the social and economic conditions of the citizenry and growing the economy to create employment," Kudumo says.
Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah says the parliament has made some progress, but not enough to show real change.
"People were hoping for clearer action on issues like the cost of living, jobs, healthcare, education, and stronger accountability measures," he says.
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Kamwanyah says more focus should be on implementation, not just discussion, adding that this would have helped build electorate trust.
In an interview with Desert Radio, Affirmative Repositioning (AR) chief whip Vaino Hangula yesterday described the parliament's performance as sluggish.
"I am very disappointed and the majority of Namibians would agree with me that they expected to see more going on," he said.
He said the party's work has been challenging due to some parliamentarians still undergoing orientation and being dominated by the ruling party.
"We are doing our best to scrutinise these bills to make sure we do not have another Fishrot situation and other bad bills that were passed," Hangula said.
AR parliamentarian George Kambala yesterday said he is deeply disappointed in the conduct of ministers.
"We cannot call it a functioning democracy when ministers take months to answer written questions, when critical issues affecting our people are treated casually, and when the parliament is reduced to a rubber-stamp instead of a real oversight institution," he said.
Kambala said he came to the parliament to fight for transparency, accountability and bold solutions to the struggles of the people - not to sit quietly while those in power avoid responsibility.
"The people who sent us here expect seriousness, urgency and leadership. And that is what I will continue demanding without apology," he said.
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