‘Jobs auctioned for scholarships’

THE President of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), Hidipo Hamutenya, says his party will overhaul the country’s ailing education system as a matter of urgency if voted into power.

Ruling party leaders don’t even have confidence in their own education system and are unable to educate their people but are running around begging for scholarships for their children from the Chinese, he charged. Speaking at a rally at Mariental on Saturday, Hamu-tenya placed considerable emphasis on the state of the education system.He said investors could not find skilled people as there are no skills development programmes in Namibia because the education system is dilapidated. Hamutenya said that if elected his party would strengthen the education system. ‘We have to train a new army of teachers, we have to train and retrain our teachers,’ he said, adding that an RDP government would buy more textbooks, build and renovate classrooms.He said that not so long ago the Hardap Region had artisans, who are now unemployed because the building and technical jobs have been ‘auctioned off to the Chinese for scholarships’. He said with his party the nation would get back the vision and recapture the direction of the country that was lost 20 years ago. He added that his party would also arrest the rampant corruption in the country and address the problems in the healthcare sector.He urged the Hardap Region to vote for change, without fear of intimidation.’You don’t need an AK-47 or guns to change go-vernments, you need a pen,’ he told the crowd.