Namibia Pty Ltd

Decolonisation as Private Business

EVER since Inde­pendence, the government of Namibia has held the exploitative and discriminatory nature of the country’s century of firm occupation under first German and later South African settler colonialism and the infamous system of Apartheid responsible for the gross inequalities still characterised in the current post-colonial social disparities. Indeed, the point of departure in terms of the inherited socio-economic structures, placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the erstwhile freedom fighters.After all, the transfer of political power was accompanied by the acceptance of the existing socio-economic structures.The inequalities were endorsed as status quo in terms of constitutionally protected ownership and property rights.The limited scope of social changes was as part of the negotiated settlement confined to reforms operating inside this legally binding framework guided by a policy of “national reconciliation”.16 years into Independence, the balance sheet of the Republic of Namibia is at best mixed.According to the Human Development Report released annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Namibia remains the most unequal country in the world.A World Bank commissioned report alerted in 2005 that the ongoing inequalities in Namibian society “represent a threat to national cohesion, peace, and political stability, and a failure to realise the productive potential of a large proportion of the population.”A UN country assessment warned in September 2005 of an unfolding humanitarian crisis due to the combination of HIV/Aids, food insecurity and the ineffective delivery of critical social services to the most vulnerable groups.Since then, the outbreak of polio as a classical poverty-related disease came almost like a confirmation of the bleak prognosis.The numerous noble policy declarations to at least reduce, if not eradicate, social inequality need to be critically questioned with regard to the (lack of) convincing achievements.Admittedly, as a partial result of a combined approach of “national reconciliation” and “affirmative action”, the class structure has been slightly modified and the privileged segment of society became less exclusive in terms of pigmentation.To that extent, the blatantly racist power structures and property relations have gradually been replaced by a more colour-blind class agenda.Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) served the interests of a new bureaucratic elite from the ranks of the erstwhile liberation movement.These liberators (who liberated mainly themselves) profitably cashed their access to the country’s resources through their political and public service offices secured at and since Independence.The results have been sobering for the country’s still underprivileged majority, while corruption and misappropriation of funds nourished a parasitic minority.The Deputy Director in the Office of the Auditor General voiced in mid-2005 publicly his frustration about the leniency concerning checks and balances in public accounting and transparency.As he stated, instructions were “totally ignored without any fear” by top civil servants.This had been spectacularly confirmed by several high calibre cases of fraud and self-enrichment schemes, looting pension funds and other public finances.Shady business practices illustrated in a textbook way the infamous “fat cat syndrome” prevailing.The financial scandals prompted the Secretary of Swapo’s Elder Council to denounce the selfish behaviour of some comrades as a monster of avarice and avidity “eating the national cake greedily, excessively, with impunity”.Prime Minister Nahas Angula shared similar sentiments when calling the abuse of several hundred million N$ from the GIPF pension funds on get-rich-quick schemes masquerading as BEE “just asset-stripping”.Cabinet since then amended and renamed its BEE strategy into Transformational Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (TESEF).Through loan schemes, fish quota allocations, land resettlement and employment equity it should reflect positive changes in the lives of not only a few individuals.Based on experiences so far, there are enough reasons to remain sceptical.The notion of national reconciliation declared as a guiding principle for the consolidation of post-colonial Namibia translates to a large extent into a pact among old and new elites, where the latter ones were co-opted as the beneficiaries into the existing structures.In the latest revelations of self-enrichment schemes, qualified by the “Insight” magazine in its March issue as “the mother of all empowerment deals”, another “horde of black economic empowerment groups” is since mid-2006 coming under increased scrutiny.The deal set up between the South African oil giant Sasol and a conglomerate of locally created firms without any proper offices has as main beneficiaries among the Namibian counterparts a former trade union leader and several high-ranking government officials operating within an intricate web of pseudo-enterprises.As the former trade unionist reportedly declared in defence of the deal, the shareholders were “just black entrepreneurs who needed the money and took advantage of a given situation”.- How much more cynical bluntness can one imagine? A popular school of thought within critical poverty research holds the view that it is the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of narrow privileged groups that creates and perpetuates inequalities.According to such an understanding, the analysis of power is fundamental to any examination of poverty.A recent Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bluntly stated that widespread poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is not only dehumanising but “made even more disturbing by lack of progress in reducing it and by ostentatious income inequities personalized by rich, dominant local elites”.Such privatisation of public resources results firstly in political-administrative power as personalized power, secondly in politics as kind of business enterprise and thirdly in vertical clientele relationships of a neo-patrimonial nature.The result is an increasingly authoritarian and incompetent state that rarely responds to public pressure.After some incubation period, another result of such cleptocratic regimes is their gradual loss of legitimacy and a growing dissent among the erstwhile supportive masses.As these realise sooner or later, the ongoing exclusion of the impoverished and marginalised from the benefits of the country’s wealth is not any longer only a result of the structural legacy left behind by foreign rule, as so conveniently claimed by the new post-colonial elites.To that extent the official position, which continues to put the blame squarely on colonialism alone, is misleading and shying away from the real issues at stake.So far, Namibia’s post-colonial development has not yet ended in such Zimbabwe-type decay.But it also has failed so far to produce – in the absence of any sustainable socialist alternative – a meaningful “patriotic bourgeoisie” contributing to the general social stability – and be it only for its own interest.What has been emerging instead, is at best a crypto-capitalist, petty-minded self-enriching new black elite, which spends its energy on exploiting the public purse.In the absence of a meaningful, profit-generating industrial sector, in which capital would be accumulated through surplus production based on the exploitation also of value adding labour (which implies at least employment for a majority of people), the creation of individual wealth relies on the privatisation of natural resources (mainly in the sectors of fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism) or benefits linked to privileges in the public sector and the state owned enterprises or parastatals.This can be witnessed particularly with regard to top management positions in the public utilities companies (water and energy, but also telecommunication and transport).Public procurement and other outsourcing activities by those in control over the state agencies turn “affirmative action” and BEE into self-rewarding schemes based on “struggle merits” among loyal members of the erstwhile liberation movement.The skewed class character of Namibia’s society has through such mechanisms not fundamentally changed.Co-option into the ruling segments within an already existing socio-economic system is far from social transformation.BEE continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many.It turns decolonisation largely into a private business for self-enrichment.The visible results of such limited decolonisation are no proof of a political will to serve the poor in the interests of all.It’s not about redistribution of (relative) wealth, nor tackling chronic poverty by means of social protection, but it’s all about self-enrichment, capitalism, and class.In other words: it’s business as usual.* Dr. Henning Melber had been Director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000 and Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden since then.Indeed, the point of departure in terms of the inherited socio-economic structures, placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the erstwhile freedom fighters.After all, the transfer of political power was accompanied by the acceptance of the existing socio-economic structures.The inequalities were endorsed as status quo in terms of constitutionally protected ownership and property rights.The limited scope of social changes was as part of the negotiated settlement confined to reforms operating inside this legally binding framework guided by a policy of “national reconciliation”.16 years into Independence, the balance sheet of the Republic of Namibia is at best mixed.According to the Human Development Report released annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Namibia remains the most unequal country in the world.A World Bank commissioned report alerted in 2005 that the ongoing inequalities in Namibian society “represent a threat to national cohesion, peace, and political stability, and a failure to realise the productive potential of a large proportion of the population.”A UN country assessment warned in September 2005 of an unfolding humanitarian crisis due to the combination of HIV/Aids, food insecurity and the ineffective delivery of critical social services to the most vulnerable groups.Since then, the outbreak of polio as a classical poverty-related disease came almost like a confirmation of the bleak prognosis.The numerous noble policy declarations to at least reduce, if not eradicate, social inequality need to be critically questioned with regard to the (lack of) convincing achievements.Admittedly, as a partial result of a combined approach of “national reconciliation” and “affirmative action”, the class structure has been slightly modified and the privileged segment of society became less exclusive in terms of pigmentation.To that extent, the blatantly racist power structures and property relations have gradually been replaced by a more colour-blind class agenda.Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) served the interests of a new bureaucratic elite from the ranks of the erstwhile liberation movement.These liberators (who liberated mainly themselves) profitably cashed their access to the country’s resources through their political and public service offices secured at and since Independence.The results have been sobering for the country’s still underprivileged majority, while corruption and misappropriation of funds nourished a parasitic minority.The Deputy Director in the Office of the Auditor General voiced in mid-2005 publicly his frustration about the leniency concerning checks and balances in public accounting and transparency.As he stated, instructions were “totally ignored without any fear” by top civil servants.This had been spectacularly confirmed by several high calibre cases of fraud and self-enrichment schemes, looting pension funds and other public finances.Shady business practices illustrated in a textbook way the infamous “fat cat syndrome” prevailing.The financial scandals prompted the Secretary of Swapo’s Elder Council to denounce the selfish behaviour of some comrades as a monster of avarice and avidity “eating the national cake greedily, excessively, with impunity”.Prime Minister Nahas Angula shared similar sentiments when calling the abuse of several hundred million N$ from the GIPF pension funds on get-rich-quick schemes masquerading as BEE “just asset-stripping”. Cabinet since then amended and renamed its BEE strategy into Transformational Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (TESEF).Through loan schemes, fish quota allocations, land resettlement and employment equity it should reflect positive changes in the lives of not only a few individuals.Based on experiences so far, there are enough reasons to remain sceptical.The notion of national reconciliation declared as a guiding principle for the consolidation of post-colonial Namibia translates to a large extent into a pact among old and new elites, where the latter ones were co-opted as the beneficiaries into the existing structures.In the latest revelations of self-enrichment schemes, qualified by the “Insight” magazine in its March issue as “the mother of all empowerment deals”, another “horde of black economic empowerment groups” is since mid-2006 coming under increased scrutiny.The deal set up between the South African oil giant Sasol and a conglomerate of locally created firms without any proper offices has as main beneficiaries among the Namibian counterparts a former trade union leader and several high-ranking government officials operating within an intricate web of pseudo-enterprises.As the former trade unionist reportedly declared in defence of the deal, the shareholders were “just black entrepreneurs who needed the money and took advantage of a given situation”.- How much more cynical bluntness can one imagine? A popular school of thought within critical poverty research holds the view that it is the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of narrow privileged groups that creates and perpetuates inequalities.According to such an understanding, the analysis of power is fundamental to any examination of poverty.A recent Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bluntly stated that widespread poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is not only dehumanising but “made even more disturbing by lack of progress in reducing it and by ostentatious income inequities personalized by rich, dominant local elites”.Such privatisation of public resources results firstly in political-administrative power as personalized power, secondly in politics as kind of business enterprise and thirdly in vertical clientele relationships of a neo-patrimonial nature.The result is an increasingly authoritarian and incompetent state that rarely responds to public pressure.After some incubation period, another result of such cleptocratic regimes is their gradual loss of legitimacy and a growing dissent among the erstwhile supportive masses.As these realise sooner or later, the ongoing exclusion of the impoverished and marginalised from the benefits of the country’s wealth is not any longer only a result of the structural legacy left behind by foreign rule, as so conveniently claimed by the new post-colonial elites.To that extent the official position, which continues to put the blame squarely on colonialism alone, is misleading and shying away from the real issues at stake.So far, Namibia’s post-colonial development has not yet ended in such Zimbabwe-type decay.But it also has failed so far to produce – in the absence of any sustainable socialist alternative – a meaningful “patriotic bourgeoisie” contributing to the general social stability – and be it only for its own interest.What has been emerging instead, is at best a crypto-capitalist, petty-minded self-enriching new black elite, which spends its energy on exploiting the public purse.In the absence of a meaningful, profit-generating industrial sector, in which capital would be accumulated through surplus production based on the exploitation also of value adding labour (which implies at least employment for a majority of people), the creation of individual wealth relies on the privatisation of natural resources (mainly in the sectors of fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism) or benefits linked to privileges in the public sector and the state owned enterprises or parastatals.This can be witnessed particularly with regard to top management positions in the public utilities companies (water and energy, but also telecommunication and transport).Public procurement and other outsourcing activities by those in control over the state agencies turn “affirmative action” and BEE into self-rewarding schemes based on “struggle merits” among loyal members of the erstwhile liberation movement.The skewed class character of Namibia’s society has through such mechanisms not fundamentally changed.Co-option into the ruling segments within an already existing socio-economic system is far from social transformation.BEE continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many.It turns decolonisation largely into a private business for self-enrichment.The visible results of such limited decolonisation are no proof of a political will to serve the poor in the interests of all.It’s not about redistribution of (relative) wealth, nor tackling chronic poverty by means of social protection, but it’s all about self-enrichment, capitalism, and class.In other words: it’s business as usual.* Dr. Henning Melber had been Director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000 and Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden since then.