Political Perspective
By: GWEN LISTER
PRIME Minister Nahas Angula has always been known as a straight-talking man, and while I haven’t always agreed with him in the past, I like some of the things he has said around the question of the Transformational Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (Tesef). At the same time, unfortunately, I don’t believe his views resonate with the majority in the ruling party and I doubt that his opinions will win the day.
IN an interview around the question of the new initiative, with which his office and the Swapo ‘think-tank’ have been tasked by the Swapo Politburo, he recalled that the Swapo 1976 congress had decided to work towards “a balanced and classless society based on the ideals of scientific socialism”. Again he emphasised that the same principles were enshrined in the original Swapo political program, and of course, he’s right about that.
I believe that his views and mine may coincide on some of these issues, but I think he is probably wasting his time trying to turn back the ride and ‘remind’ those who’ve diverted from said principles, of what Swapo once stood for. In my opinion the ruling party have long since moved so far away from any prospect of socialism that there’s no going back. We are, like it or not, a capitalist society and those who believe otherwise (and this may include both the Prime Minister and myself) are sadly in the minority.
Angula said he was opposed to what he called a ‘bourgeois class’ and the creation of wealth for some, but this is precisely what we’ve become and there can be no denying this.
Much of what ostensibly underpins the Tesef or Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) initiatives, namely the good of the broader community, is long-gone. We only need to do an audit of the probably vast tranche of resources which have been allocated towards the so-called public good, to find out that they’ve mostly landed up in the pockets of a few greedy individuals. A majority of them the same ‘comrades’ who’ve long since abandoned any idea of community advancement for their own self-enrichment.
The Prime Minister showed something of a nostalgia for the ‘old’ days, as indeed I’ve done myself. Was a time we promised to turn the apartheid system on its head and create a Namibia with opportunities for all and to ‘uplift everybody’ as he himself recently said. But that time is gone.
I think he’s at odds with his own party in that they may pay lip-service to this goal, but it hides their real intent to get rich quickly if they haven’t done so already. But this is something that will play out in time for all to see.
Angula also acknowledged that there was a ‘misperception’ among youth who joined Swapo because they wanted to get rich, while they should be signing up because they believed in the party’s ideals of social justice. He’s right that they’re joining for the wrong reasons, but I don’t think there are many who feel Swapo stands for those ideals anymore!
If they did, they’d probably be agitating for a basic income grant in some form or another, even if not in the current manifestation of BIG, and not for BEE legislation. That’s my view, at any rate.
Angula wants ‘everyone’ to be uplifted, but that’s certainly not the intention of BEE.
And maybe this is just one of the signs that Swapo no longer stands for what it once stood for, regardless of what principles were once enshrined.
So I wish the Prime Minister well with his mission to empower and uplift communities, and I’m with him all the way, if this is what he can achieve. But I’m afraid that the BEE magnates, or bourgeois class, call them what you will, will have their say and their way and hold sway, and the poor will have to make do with the crumbs that fall from the table.