Namibia’s president should be applauded for sticking with her predecessor’s template of outlining targets and promising to hold her Cabinet ministers responsible for delivery.
Through the sixth National Development Plan and the Swapo Manifesto Implementation Plan, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has rightly put her head on the block so that voters can hold her to her government’s promises.
The late president Hage Geingob took that approach at the beginning of his first term in 2015 through his signature performance target document, the Harambee Prosperity Plan.
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s promise to have Namibia achieve Vision 2030 to become an industrialised or economically advanced economy by the end of her term will apparently cost N$505 billion.
We say to anyone who wants to track progress (hopefully there will be progress unlike during Geingob’s time when Namibia’s economy regressed): follow the money.
A massive N$505 billion to leapfrog Namibia from lower middle income status, which the president is celebrating, to first world level is more than staggering.
It is equivalent to the current annual national budget spread over five years.
For starters, where will the money come from? On what will it be spent, honestly? Will the spending eventually justify the price tag or will Namibians become trapped in deeper debt than they already are with all development indicators showing a backward slide as has been the case for more than half a century?
Namibians should be concerned that now, as in the past, when promises of prosperity are made, there is never a detailed report on how the funds will be generated nor a yearly report detailing how the money was spent and whether the projects were worthwhile.
Presidents Hifikepunye Pohamba and Geingob left the country with huge amounts of debt that we are likely to struggle to pay off.
They also left us with massive white elephants like fuel storage and over-capitalised roads.
There are already indications that the Nandi-Ndaitwah administration will follow suit by borrowing handsomely.
Many hope that oil production will start in five to 10 years so Namibia can already borrow using oil as collateral.
Let’s avoid the mistakes of Mozambique and Zambia (not to mention Zimbabwe) where governments over-borrowed with no strict oversight from parliament and civil society.
Many believe Nandi-Ndaitwah has arrived with good intentions and clean hands. Kindheartedness should not be confused with competence and effectiveness.
Measures ought to be put in place to ensure that Namibia borrows prudently and that the money is used first and foremost on areas that provide economic returns, which will then fund the nice-to-have projects.
Lenders will demand their money plus interest. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Western lending institutions or Chinese and Russian governmental financiers.
They all eventually demand and squeeze repayment out of their borrowers.
Namibia must avoid that trap. Voters, follow the money.
No Harmony in One Namibia
THE tribal emotions that recently boiled over, leaving one person dead and markets burnt down, should not be swept under the carpet as either isolated flare-ups or be misinterpreted.
Otjinene councillor Erwin Katjize has decided to bury his head in the sand by claiming there were no clashes between Ovaherero speakers against Ovawambo and Ovazemba, despite the irrefutable expressions of the rioters.
Instead of behaving like ostriches, the ruling elite must do a proper diagnosis of growing tribal and racial divisions in independent Namibia.
It is the elite stoking the fires either by practising favouritism or nepotism to advance kith and kin, or the opposing elites stoking tribal emotions with the aim of eating from the trough of corruption that has benefited too many lawmakers and their cronies since independence.
The reality is that the majority of Namibians, from all tribes and races, not connected to the ruling elites have been left languishing in poverty and destitution.
