Flying Into the Sun?

“Now we are ready to fly to the moon!”

Founding president Sam Nujoma declared this after voting in the first elections his government organised to signal that Namibia was properly independent and able to to run its own affairs.

It’s been more than 30 years since Nujoma made that metaphorical statement of intent and it appears he and his successors meant it literally – that Namibia can and should do anything (everything) they wish – no matter the cost.

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has hit the ground running, promising to implement Swapo’s 2024 elections manifesto “at all costs”, but not without adding some fanciful plans such as setting up an oil refinery, a nuclear power plant, free education, and reviving Air Namibia.

Dreams have their role. They are useful to spur humankind towards improvement, to aim higher.

But to wake up after a wonderful dream and start living a fantasy is nothing short of delusional.

Politicians and their cronies living in a fantasy world may well be the reason Namibia has accumulated massive debt at taxpayers’ expense, with little in the way of economic and financial returns to show for it.

If anything, most poverty indicators show a worsening picture: Six out of 10 Namibians don’t know where their next meal will come from, almost half of the population has no access to electricity, and less than 10% of children starting Grade 1 complete the 11 to 12 years basic education cycle successfully.

Yet the country throws billions of dollars at nice-to-have projects like the N$7.5-billion fuel storage at the coast, where the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia has allowed petroleum theft to take place with impunity.

Billions of dollars have been used to build expensive government offices without improvement in most public services, and the Neckartal Dam was rushed through at a cost of more than N$5.5 billion – but 10 years later the irrigation scheme has failed to get off the ground.

Billions more have been spent on fancy road projects without improving the transportation needs of the economy and the majority of citizens.

In short, Namibia’s developmental focus is about building castles in the air while ignoring the fundamentals of life – crawling before walking.

Nujoma pushed for building the railway line from Tsumeb to Oshikango at a cost of more than N$3 billion during his term, while the tracks connecting mines and industries to the harbours had collapsed to the extent that uranium yellow cake was spilled in the desert on the way to Walvis Bay for export markets.

Money ran out to extend the railway line from Ondangwa to the imaginary harbour of Cape Fria in the Kunene region.

To date, rail transport is all but dead.

Heavy cargo has been forced onto Namibia’s roads, resulting in costly maintenance as heavy trucks and machinery damage newly built fancy highways.

Even with basics like abattoirs, the government can’t seem to get management right.

They are forcing the Meat Corporation of Namibia’s board of directors to reappoint the very same chief executive during whose tenure about N$1 billion of taxpayer money was committed to bail out the state-owned slaughterhouse, which failed to pay producers, including communal farmers.

How does it make sense to commit funds to upper-level projects while neglecting food security foundations like subsistence farming?

If Nandi-Ndaitwah follows the same old pattern of pursuing pie-in-the-sky ideas, Namibians should be gravely concerned that our elected leaders still don’t seem to be learning key lessons 35 years after independence.

A joke used to make the rounds that Nujoma also promised that Namibians would fly to the sun soon after independence.

Someone responded that the sun would incinerate the team before they got close to it.

Nujoma reportedly confidently responded “we will go at night”.

With so many white elephants across the length and breadth of Namibia, the joke is on the poor majority while politicians and their cronies continue to gamble with public resources.

The country’s leaders need to get back to basics.

We can’t fly to the moon if we cannot even build and maintain an engine.

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