"People have high expectations. They want food, shelter and clothing. They want a leader to act quickly, thus the challenges must be met," Geingob said.

"People cannot eat a constitution or democracy and our first priority is to declare war on poverty and inequality...

"We will have a brand new ministry. The ministry of poverty eradication," Geingob said.

On economic reforms, Geingob said his government would set up a ministry of state enterprises and would diversify the economy to encourage increased local value addition in order to create more jobs.

"We want to strengthen the government architecture and develop new parameters and must all work together to review from time to time the architecture of the Namibian House and build this House. No Namibian will be left out," Geingob said.

At the inauguration ceremony, which coincided with Namibia's 25th independence jubilee, the country's first-ever Vice-President Nuckey Iyambo was sworn in, as well as the new Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and her deputy, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is also foreign minister.