NNN and NDP6: A Reality Check

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s presentation introducing Namibia’s sixth National Development Plan (NDP6) on 21 July was a hodgepodge of flawed assessments and promises.

Whoever drafted the statement should be reprimanded.

It starts by praising an inclusive development agenda to overcome the “middle income trap”. This is nonsensical.

Being downgraded from an upper to a lower middle income country this year still leaves Namibia in the “middle income trap”, albeit in a worse constellation.

It is an indication of both a demographic adjustment and economic decline. It only serves to testify that Namibians are poorer than before. 

It is not, as the president maintains, a measurement of the degree of inequality which “overlooked the skewed distribution of resources”.

It is an abstract statistical indicator calculating the average per capita income based on the Gross National Income.

All it means is that, if equally shared between all Namibians, the cake has turned into smaller slices. It is statistical fiction.

In reality, a tiny minority receives multiple times this average income, while a large majority must make ends meet with much less. 

INEQUALITY AND DEBT

Inequality is not measured by the annual average per capita income. This estimate is based on what is termed the Gini coefficient as an entirely separate tool.

In the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report, Namibia consistently ranks after South Africa as the country with the second highest Gini coefficient. That is, as the second most unequal country in the world.

Regarding the downgrading to a lower middle income country as beneficial for access to less costly loans and grants is a myth.

It does not turn Namibia into a Least Developed Country with the preferential treatment associated with this appalling status, which Namibia will hopefully be spared.

The emphasis on preferential grants and loans only reinforces the already prevailing trap of building development on debt.

This translates into an unsustainable dependency on borrowed money.

The last decade was built on a debt spiral, creating liabilities which now amount to two-thirds of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), exceeding the ceiling proportion agreed on by the Southern African Development Community.

To recall: 10 years ago, the already considerably increased proportion of debt to GDP was about one-third. It has doubled since then.

The annual budget already eats up almost 14% for interest payments and guarantees. More than the allocation for health services.

We should remember that during this period Namibians became poorer.

NDP6 has been described as the final instalment en route to Vision 2030.

This utopian blueprint of founding president Sam Nujoma is as far away from current socio-economic realities as Mars is from Earth.

Here is one of the ironic contradictions: Celebrating a downgrading from an upper to a lower middle income country while wanting to be a food self-sufficient industrialised country with hardly any unemployment – in the next five years?

WISHFUL THINKING

Talk about a mission impossible.

Instead of substantially engaging with the challenges we face, president Nandi-Ndaitwah stresses the key values of her government.

These include pragmatism, accountability and integrity. This should motivate her to offer a realistic assessment, as sobering as it might be.

As it is, Namibians already experience harsh daily struggles for survival.

Recognising the challenges instead of promising a rose garden would lend weight to these declared values. 

Instead, a plethora of out-of-context examples and lofty ideas follow as kind of declared achievements three months into office.

But compiling a list of ambitions does not secure meaningful, achievable development based on realities.

The mere idea of seriously considering a trajectory, which includes the option for a nuclear power plant next to high-flying expectations concerning oil, gas and green hydrogen in a country affluent in sun and wind, borders on absurdity and reinforces dependency on external actors.

Let’s not forget: The president’s term started with an apology for reneging on an election campaign commitment.

The elderly were promised a significant increase in their monthly pension, which she said was not feasible.

The excuse was the meagre fiscal means of the Namibian state, something many observers already commented on when the promise was made.

This self-inflicted breach of a promise should have been a reminder that sober modesty is the appropriate way of handling Namibian affairs.

President Nandi-Ndaitwah ends her speech with an appeal to ”continue to work together, united by common purpose and a shared vision”.

This overlooks the initial steps for a meaningful social contract: To first establish a shared common purpose and vision rather than imposing, in a top-down approach, a utopia cultivated so far against better knowledge.    

– Henning Melber was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit from 1992 to 2000. He is resident associate of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, and extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein.

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