on me as the first president of the republic of namibia, i would like to bow and pay homage to our fallen heroes and heroines, whose names namibia ’ s present and future generations will sing in songs of praise and whose martyrdom they will intone ”. ladies and gentleman, as with the task of leading the liberation movement, on the job of reconstruction and nation building he also excelled. his courage and exemplarily leadership are admirable and for this we honour him. we are indeed honouring our heroes. director of ceremonies your excellency, sir in honoring national heroes, the challenge and questions faced by decision makers in many countries is always “ why this one and not the other one ”. there are many other heroes and heroines in namibia. why not jacob marenga, a legendary personality in the whole of southern africa, known as the black napoleon, cornelius fredrikies of bethanie, samuel maharero, who fought brave battles at okandjira and ohamakari in 1904. how about nehale lya - mpingana who attacked the forte at onamutuni in support of maharero and his people. why not chief kutako who also fought at ohamakari? where is mandume ya ndemufayo, who died in combat in 1917 at oihole? how about iipumbu ya shilongo, who was sent into exile in 1932 after his palace was bombarded by the air force? how about the fearless warrior, chief kai xamseb, who was beheaded in 1890 and his grave was only found in 2005 in the botanical garden in windhoek? how about tobias hainyeko? what about meme bis central bankers ’ speeches gertrud kandanga? why not brendan kangongolo simbwaye, who disappeared without trace in 1972? how about anton lubowski, who was murdered in 1989? director of ceremonies what about our other heroes and heroines whose names we have not mentioned today. the truth is that we have many heroes and heroines who have sacrificed for our beloved country. to these people we shall remain indebted for ever. to our heroes and heroines, we owe our freedom. their aspirations are nothing else but for the present and future generations to have unity, to ensure nation building and to work hard to achieve vision 2030. we shall continue to honour them in different ways because their blood waters our freedom. in

developed a new vision, strategies and objectives for the namibian nps. bis central bankers ’ speeches allow me to spend few minutes to highlight a few points about what is contained in the vision document. the nps vision 2015 document provides a high - level strategic direction for the namibian payment system up to 2015. the nps vision 2015 contains six strategic focus areas, i will highlight a few. access and participation in the nps the first objective under this focus area is to increase the accessibility of the payment system by providing for new types of participants, but at the same time maintaining the safety and efficiency of the payment system by adhering to sound internationally accepted payment system principles. increased accessibility by new participants will facilitate wider usage of the payment system by the public and will further enhance access to financial services and payment system. the second objective, close to many people ’ s hearts, is to set standards for fees and charges in the interest of efficiency in the nps. the payment system fees and charges have often been identified as one of the key supply side barriers to financial services. the recent amendments to the payment system management act give the bank of namibia power to act if the market fails to ensure that fees and charges are transparent, competitive and commensurate with input costs. over the next few years ending in 2015, the bank will be targeting products, fees and charges that have hindered namibia from moving towards a more financially inclusive economy : these are : cash deposit fees, the lack of a low cost basic bank account, penalty fees, dormant account fees, non - transparent pricing such as tiered pricing structures, and interchange fees an implementation plan with a time table on how to address these issues has been agreed with banks recently and is in the process of being rolled out. interoperability and standards in the nps in order to ensure that the namibian payment system remains safe and efficient we need to adopt international best practice. namibia has in the past few years experienced a significant increase in card fraud. therefore we need to strengthen our risk mitigation measures. in this regard, i am pleased to inform you that the banking industry has agreed on a roadmap for rolling out europay, mastercard and visa ( emv ) standards in namibia. these standards will be fully complied with on the post machines side by 2012 and on the cards side by 2015. once implemented, emv compliance will go a long way to reducing card fraud in namibia. nps infrastructure and technology namibia can