THE year 2005 has come to an end, offering neither major difficulties nor great cause for celebration.When Namibia’s changing of the guard took place on March 21 2005, however, there was a great deal of euphoria and perhaps even a false sense of optimism.
The best thing about the new Pohamba Administration is not what it has been able to do thus far, but rather the sense of optimism that escorted Pohamba into State House. Much of the euphoria had to do with what people heard or did not hear Pohamba say at the time he came to power, in his inaugural address and other utterances he made before he appointed his Cabinet on March 21 2005.His statements in general and his inaugural speech in particular contained all the factors that Namibians had longed for in their President – all the things they had been wanting to hear and had not heard in the years since Independence.Pohamba talked in the measured tones of a man with a big heart.His tone and demeanour conveyed to ordinary Namibians an eagerness to hear, listen and respect every Namibian, including those who had been baptised as enemies of the State by former President Sam Nujoma.Pohamba’s voice was soft, paternal; he opened his hands to the audience, instead of the wagging finger they had become accustomed to from his predecessor.The new President’s voice carried with it an invitation to put the nation back to work.When he announced his Cabinet, people heard his voice rather than what he was saying.They read more in his childlike, gentle eyes than they were about to see in the form of the new Cabinet that the people were eagerly awaiting, which would assist the President to deliver on his fresh and sweet-sounding promises.What they actually received tasted more like Nujoma’s favourite old dish – not what they expected, at least not the majority of what they heard.The tone in which the Cabinet was announced slowly became overshadowed by people’s knowledge of many of the members of the old/new Cabinet.People who desired and were promised change were left confused, with no words to express their disbelief.Most decided it was too early to express dissatisfaction but felt that they should allow time to do what it does best: reveal the truth.Others chose to believe that this was just an interim Cabinet to appease Nujoma, whom most knew was reluctant to leave the State House.The first seeds of doubt were sown by the announcement of the Cabinet without a concomitant change.With subdued sighs, many voters wondered about the logical basis on which these persons had been (re)appointed to cabinet, when many of them were the very reason for the demand for change.Virtually everybody knew that most appointees may have been loyal to the party, but had not delivered in terms of promises to the nation.Citizens then wondered whether this was what the new President thought of his country and his people: that in Namibia anybody is fit to be a minister, and that skill and knowledge did not matter.What then did matter, no one could explain.Namibian citizens and voters continued to wait.And they are still waiting.Despite that awkward start with its murmurings of discontent, accompanied by a sharp sense of Namibian humour about some of the recycled ministers, Namibians continued to have, and demonstrate, faith in their new President.It is as if they said to themselves: what we are seeing and hearing is negative, but the promises are still too positive to be drowned out by what appear to be the faux pas of a beginner leader.They still hoped and believed that Pohamba’s team would be guided by a set of fundamental values, ethics of integrity, accountability, good governance and the equality of all Namibians.Pohamba actually arrived with a gentle bang when he proclaimed that he would personally see to it that official deviances such as corruption, maladministration, malpractice, misuse of State resources and graft would be interred in the past, and that there would be zero tolerance of all these ills that were cancers in the body of the nation.His promise to create a clean government, in addition to the positive undertakings mentioned above, expressed excellent sentiments indeed, and the message was too loud to be forgotten.Hence Namibians thought it necessary to give Pohamba time and breathing space to find himself, after which they hoped he would deliver on his promises.What followed, however, seems to weave a different tapestry altogether, and it is no longer too early to start to dissect Pohamba’s governance during the months he has been in office.One year later, one discerns several weaknesses in the Pohamba Administration that are cause for concern.The country and the nation will be better served if the issues now emerging are identified and addressed before it is too late.First, the size of the Cabinet ran counter to the sentiments that had endeared Pohamba to the people, namely that the resources of the nation are meagre, and would best be spent on serving the needs of the people, rather than on maintaining the living standards of the ‘honourable’ officials.People saw old wine in new bottles, which were about to leak.The Cabinet already looked unwieldy for a population so small and which needed instead a lean and mean Cabinet to start delivering.Bloated cabinets in Africa constitute one of the killer diseases in these economies.The manner in which resources in Namibia are spent on the executive makes Namibians look like fools when their leaders appeal for international aid from nations that are richer – and yet more frugal with their resources.For instance, recently President Pohamba was in dialogue with the Federal Republic of Germany, and a great deal of that discussion concerned aid for Namibia.Germany, with a population of over 80 million people, has only 13 cabinet ministers.Yet Namibia, with a population of under two million, boasts 27 Cabinet ministers, before deputy ministers are added.South Africa, with a population of 45 million, employs 27 ministers – the same number as Namibia.Botswana, with almost the same size of population as Namibia, has 14 ministers and five deputy ministers, and Botswana is wealthier than Namibia.It is so notable that even a struggling nation such as Ethiopia, with over 76 million people, is prudent enough to deploy only 20 ministers.When one adds up the total size of the Namibian Cabinet, that is ministers and deputy ministers and those invited to be in Cabinet when they should not be – considering the fact that all of them are entitled to a significant number of allowances and other perks (transport, housing, entertainment and constituency allowances) – the result seriously strains public resources and service delivery in general.This completely undermines the promise Pohamba made to exercise better oversight over the use of public resources.Furthermore, the President and those around him have yet to make the case that these ‘ministers for life’ are retained because they have been effective in executing their tasks.Perhaps Pohamba would have fared better by keeping them on as members of the legislature where they can shout slogans and be paid at the end of the month! The resources wasted on them represent the money of taxpayers and foreign donations that should reach the most vulnerable citizens.At the moment there is enough to suggest that President Pohamba, like most African presidents, lacks a basic understanding and appreciation of the scarcity of resources at his and the country’s disposal.The fundamental laws of the treasury and economics dictate that you work with what you have, not what you wish to have.Their lack of understanding allows most African leaders to exercise unfettered power to dish out positions to their loyalists and party buddies.Namibia, like most of Africa, is poor, but the leaders do not behave as if they are poor.Yet they have the audacity to go to the better-organised economies and beg for aid with the claim of being poor.The irony is that Nujoma began better than Pohamba in this respect in 1990, appointing his first Cabinet of fewer than 18 ministers.Nujoma’s system became corrupt over time as he mov
ed towards the politics of triumphalism and of patronage in the latter years of his reign.In fact Nujoma’s first Cabinet comprised a very strong team, containing ministers who knew what was at stake, and who displayed a commitment to the nation.One only has to call to mind the first Cabinet’s commitment to national reconciliation and responsible handling of the land question! With Nujoma’s first Cabinet, Namibia’s image that was created and managed by the ministry of foreign affairs was, to all intents and purposes, the envy of many African states.Second, Pohamba was believed when he promised unity in the country and service delivery to improve the lives of all Namibians.Most people understood that he would start creating a culture of appointing his team on the basis of merit and competency.What they actually saw was exactly the same as what Nujoma did, namely appointing comrades to ministerial positions not because they were the best in the country, but because they were the most loyal Swapo members.To be appointed, people merely needed to demonstrate how ‘Swapo’ they were, even if their conduct as leaders had been at the expense of the people.Strangely enough, it is the ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ who are most passionate about the business of Swapo rather than those who sacrificed their lives to build the movement and the party.The ‘quarter-to-twelve Swapos’ are the ones spitting fire about loyalty and discipline – about which they know nothing.They do not even pay respect to the values and principles that kept Swapo going when it was most dangerous to be a Swapo cadre.The trouble with retaining the same people who have been ministers for 10 or 16 years is that in many respects this practice is not helpful.Most of them cannot be said to have been so effective that they are indispensable in the management of the affairs of the nation.They are not even indispensable to the business of the party.They are indispensable only to themselves and their un-argued political careers.For the most part, many of the ministers are there only because they are Swapo apparatchiks.After all, the call for Nujoma not to have been given a fourth term had to do with the need for change.If Nujoma, who was not a bad president, was required to leave in order to give way to others, why does the same logic not apply to these ‘ministers for life’? Furthermore, these ministers were never elected directly by the people.They occupy their positions at the invitation of the president.At the very least one would feel better if they were in possession of the skills and knowledge to do the work the president tasked them with.The fact of the matter is that they are neither competent nor energetic nor sufficiently passionate to fulfil their functions.What they know best is how to please somebody – not the people, but the President.If Pohamba is seen to have squandered the trust capital of the people, he is likely to be frustrated by his own ministers, most of whom owe their loyalty and political success to Nujoma.As they say: one never gets a second chance to make a first impression! Third, Pohamba was expected to break the cycle of looking in the same old place for people to appoint as ministers, and was expected to cast net more widely as he assembled his team to take the country forward.There are Namibians with skills, with knowledge, with passion, with the intellectual capital to serve the nation.What people have acquired by way of their academic education and technical skills must be seen as the foundation for them to serve their country.There was nothing that stopped Pohamba from roping in capable people from the opposition who are in Parliament to augment the skills shortages in the ruling party.What should matter is what they can do for their country.As long as the President continues to punish those with skills and reward those with no skills or merit, to serve, he will be remembered to have served the nation ill.After 16 years of independence and self-rule, the Namibian leadership ought to have matured enough to move beyond the parochial interests of a political party or leader and think in terms of what is good for the nation as a whole.This is so because political parties come and go, but the nation remains.The practice of recycling party loyalists whom everybody knows cannot deliver has three main immediate consequences: (a) The system of governance acquires a culture of inefficiency and ineffectiveness, with the likely outcome being that over time, it can implode because mediocrity is economically unproductive and self-destructive; (b) The nation acquires a negative and apologetic self-understanding, exhibiting a tendency to justify bad and negative role models in leadership, the likely outcome of which is that the future leaders lose both respect for their leaders and interest in leadership roles as they develop disdain for buffoonery; (c) Namibia continues to sell itself short internally and internationally and ends up the laughing stock of other nations who deploy more capable and competent leaders, who bring honour, not ridicule, to their people.The result of the buddy system is that the ministers and deputy ministers know that they are not deserving of their lofty positions and become victims of their own insecurity.Thus they develop a cliquish culture that feeds gossip and rumour-mongering and they compete to inform the President in order to remain safe in their positions.Hence, ministers invent fictitious enemies of the State, better still of the President, because they feel the need to ‘brief’ the President, their main client.This culture then develops into a psychosis, engulfing the whole nation in fear and angst.The system as a whole becomes inefficient and dysfunctional and the people are alienated further from it and the leaders.The ministers fear the people and their only defence mechanism is to keep the President away from the people by telling him what they think he wants to hear so that their tenure is secured.This is how sycophancy is bred.This executive branch of government never functions as accurate and honest mirrors of the president.They run to tell him not what would help him succeed, but what would make themselves look good in the eyes of their master.The case could be made that most of Namibia’s ministers today attend meetings, go to work, as a lifestyle, not to serve the nation.They are not even eager to learn in order to improve their competency.They do what they do to please the President and, better yet, the party.In the end, the nation suffers on the scaffold of political games and one-upmanship.This is how many African states have imploded and their leadership eventually swept away! The political party that distributes the executive jobs becomes more important than the Constitution of the nation or even the nation as a whole.The ruling party is the constituency that the ministers serve.The way for them to demonstrate their good work is not by delivering services to the people, but by attending as many meetings as possible where they will be sure to be noticed by the President or Prime Minister, or by wearing the party shirt, cap or scarf with the loudest colours.Fourth, it is fair to have expected Pohamba to have put a stop to some of the State practices that neither bring honour to Government and the people, nor are they economically justifiable.Such practices include the custom that Nujoma introduced that whenever the President leaves the country, the Cabinet is expected to line up at the airport to bid farewell to him and receive him again when he returns.Functioning democracies that have the means to afford this, do not do it, as it is a waste of economic time.In Namibia, even ambassadors or heads of foreign missions are expected to be at the airport when the President travels and returns.Both Pohamba and Prime Minister Nahas Angula have begun to question some of the unintelligent customs that cost resources.It is time for Namibia to stop practices that only make all of us look like foolish and unintelligent inhabitants of a ‘Banana Republic’.Fifth, Pohamba created the expectation that he would champion unity in the party and the
country in ways that would demonstrate to the nation and the world that he was a man of the people.What has become evident is that he is more of a Swapo Vice President than the leader of the nation.Almost everything he does has to be processed through the party leadership, which means that Nujoma must approve it.Owing to the issues of corruption, the ongoing divisions in the ruling party and the politics of the newly rediscovered mass graves in Enhana and elsewhere, as President of the country, Pohamba was expected to convey a message that would assure the nation that this style of party politics is not the way he intends to lead the nation.His silence could be and was indeed interpreted as the result of Swapo discipline.But for a President there is more at stake than sitting quietly and appearing ineffective.After all, politics is more about perception than reality.The perception now is that Nujoma is the leader not only of the party but of the country, that Nujoma is Pohamba’s boss – that the President of the country is at the beck and call of the president of the party.This is a very dangerous perception! The point here is that whether Pohamba knows or realises the outcome of his obsequiousness to Nujoma (admittedly his sanctioner and campaign manager) or not, he ought to appreciate that he is now the President of the Republic of Namibia.He is therefore not merely vice president of the ruling party, Swapo.He also ought to internalise the fact that he, unlike any of his ministers, is the only one who was elected directly by the people, and that therefore Nujoma has no power to intimidate him any longer.He is now the leader of the nation even if he remains mindful of the fact that Nujoma anointed him in order to frustrate the party for not fighting for him to stay on as President for the fourth term.Pohamba ought to realise that as he takes the nation into 2006, he is the leader and must lead, not simply manage Nujoma’s choices and agendas.It is time for leadership, not uninformed discipline.History instructs us over and over again that most nations stand or fall on leadership.That time for President Pohamba is NOW.In other words, if Pohamba continues in 2006 to act as he did in 2005, with the right words yet at a slow pace, if not inaction, he is likely to succeed in disappointing more and more Namibians.This is not to say he is a bad person.He just has not started to lead the nation in accordance with his own passions.In fact, Pohamba is so bogged down that even in small matters he is likely to say that he must consult first.What he says is that he must get approval from the leader(s) first.He is now, fortunately or unfortunately, the leader of the nation of Namibia.He was elected by citizens, not only Swapo members, to lead.He is not a manager who needs to read the right pages of the manual.Nor should he try to copy Nujoma.Otherwise the nation will move on and leave him behind.President Pohamba can demonstrate a good deal of this when he announces his Cabinet reshuffle early in 2006.The nation will have given him ample time to show that he is what they want to believe he is: a leader whose time has come! This is very important because the present line up of the Cabinet is anything but competent, and cannot create the kind of legacy that Pohamba would like to be remembered by.The nation continues to wait to see the real Pohamba, and his A-Team that will take his vision for Namibia forward.Human nature dictates that if people are kept waiting too long, disillusionment takes over.The danger for Pohamba is that if the time comes when people begin to wonder about his leadership, they will forgive neither him nor themselves.They will blame him for having been a very weak leader when they needed one to steward them.They will blame themselves for having been cheated by their own liking for Pohamba, their good and kind uncle, but one for who the task of leadership was too big and they did not see it.They will blame Nujoma for having conned them into accepting Pohamba as a leader when Nujoma knew better, yet set the nation up to fail.In his first year as President, Pohamba did not have a functioning cabinet team.With a few exceptions, such as Fisheries and Marine Resources, Defence and Education, most of the appointments were either based upon NO logic at all, or the appointees were mediocre or downright incompetent.This does not imply that these are bad people.They are good human beings who are simply not leaders.They have no competency, no skills, and no passion beyond ruling party rhetoric.In sum, it would be fair to say that Pohamba arrived at the State House with a suitcase full of good ideas and excellent wishes.What he seems not to have brought with him was a game plan with a set of targets and deliverables spread over the period of the next five years.Had he possessed this, it would have been easier for him to determine what he needed, whom he needed and how he needed to pursue his goals aggressively.The Swapo Manifesto, which he upheld as the blueprint, cannot give him that.The team he inherited from Nujoma, both in State House and at the Tintenpalast, cannot offer him the game plan of others and help him succeed.It would appear that Pohamba himself has never developed a game plan for and with his leadership, as he has always been a loyal follower of Swapo.All his life he has never displayed the ambition which would have compelled him to develop a game plan.And game plans do not evolve suddenly.We know that a major factor that helped Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to lead Uganda out of the pit that had been dug by both Milton Obote and Idi Amin was his Comprehensive National Economic Development Plan, which, apparently, he had worked on long before he became president.One main reason for the absence of a game plan for Pohamba is Swapo’s failure to have a succession plan.Hence Nujoma pulled Pohamba’s name out of his magic hat, in the main to frustrate those presidential hopefuls who arguably had better plans for the country and cause chaos so that he would be needed to save the situation.And Nujoma is no newcomer to mischief making! Therefore, the major challenges for President Pohamba in 2006 are the following: First, to develop his own set of dreams and a game plan to pursue them.Second, to break the plan down into deliverables short, medium and long terms.Third, mobilise money and competent people to focus and deliver on the goals, failing which they are let go.Fourth, find the right communication instruments to brand him and communicate his messages appropriately and timeously and in tandem with one another.Fifth, Pohamba takes charge of the overall direction the country is to go while he is in office, surrounding himself with the right and competent people who will serve him and his agenda.Sixth, Pohamba states boldly and consistently that he is the President of the country and makes sure he is not hamstrung by Swapo politics.For all intents and purposes Pohamba was given a wider mandate than Nujoma ever had to lead Namibia.Seventh, Pohamba selects a few critical ministries, such as Education, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry, Finance and Tourism and transforms them by firstly assigning them to very competent people for with these ministries Pohamba can wow the region and the international community so much so that he will stand out above many.Eighth, Pohamba continues and improves on what he started by cultivating sound and strategic relationships with leaders of the opposition and the media as both bouncing boards as well as conduits of his messages.Ninth, Pohamba leads the reconfiguration of Namibian’s relationship with South Africa and Germany as the main strategic partners in more ways than one, and develop programmes and packages to streamline them towards mutual benefits and interests.Tenth, the Pohamba Government leads and champions education reform within SADC which will lead to a dispensation of a standardised education system and quality for students in the region, the outcome of which would be acceptance of qualification by all institutions in the region qualifications from any of the members of the accredited
institutions in the region.Lastly, Pohamba needs to become his own man and strengthen the perception that he is the conscience of the nation post-independence, just as Nujoma was the conscience of pre-independence Namibia.This he must do as a matter of urgency, even if it leads to him alienating some of his Swapo comrades, not because he loves Swapo less, but because he loves Namibia more! This also means he must take the risks that go with the territory of transformational leadership.As the adage goes, standing still for him would be the fastest way of going backwards in this rapidly changing world.The challenge for the President here is that if he continues to be so careful not to risk anything, he will risk even more, including his own respect in the ruling party and his name in the history books.Finally, the absence of bold leadership accompanied by carefully thought-out goals with a decisive game plan, President Pohamba is invariably compelled to revert to Nujoma for clarity or to obtain the original copy of Nujoma’s game plan.And Nujoma will not give it.In fact, Nujoma wants to use it himself.By the looks of things, Nujoma does use his old game plan all the time.One hopes that there will never come a time when the Namibian people will be so disappointed, dissatisfied and disenchanted with Pohamba’s leadership that they will look with nostalgia to Nujoma, the current President Emeritus—and convince themselves that only he, the Founding Father of the Nation, is the only one with the fix!Much of the euphoria had to do with what people heard or did not hear Pohamba say at the time he came to power, in his inaugural address and other utterances he made before he appointed his Cabinet on March 21 2005.His statements in general and his inaugural speech in particular contained all the factors that Namibians had longed for in their President – all the things they had been wanting to hear and had not heard in the years since Independence.Pohamba talked in the measured tones of a man with a big heart.His tone and demeanour conveyed to ordinary Namibians an eagerness to hear, listen and respect every Namibian, including those who had been baptised as enemies of the State by former President Sam Nujoma.Pohamba’s voice was soft, paternal; he opened his hands to the audience, instead of the wagging finger they had become accustomed to from his predecessor.The new President’s voice carried with it an invitation to put the nation back to work.When he announced his Cabinet, people heard his voice rather than what he was saying.They read more in his childlike, gentle eyes than they were about to see in the form of the new Cabinet that the people were eagerly awaiting, which would assist the President to deliver on his fresh and sweet-sounding promises.What they actually received tasted more like Nujoma’s favourite old dish – not what they expected, at least not the majority of what they heard.The tone in which the Cabinet was announced slowly became overshadowed by people’s knowledge of many of the members of the old/new Cabinet.People who desired and were promised change were left confused, with no words to express their disbelief.Most decided it was too early to express dissatisfaction but felt that they should allow time to do what it does best: reveal the truth.Others chose to believe that this was just an interim Cabinet to appease Nujoma, whom most knew was reluctant to leave the State House.The first seeds of doubt were sown by the announcement of the Cabinet without a concomitant change.With subdued sighs, many voters wondered about the logical basis on which these persons had been (re)appointed to cabinet, when many of them were the very reason for the demand for change.Virtually everybody knew that most appointees may have been loyal to the party, but had not delivered in terms of promises to the nation.Citizens then wondered whether this was what the new President thought of his country and his people: that in Namibia anybody is fit to be a minister, and that skill and knowledge did not matter.What then did matter, no one could explain.Namibian citizens and voters continued to wait.And they are still waiting.Despite that awkward start with its murmurings of discontent, accompanied by a sharp sense of Namibian humour about some of the recycled ministers, Namibians continued to have, and demonstrate, faith in their new President.It is as if they said to themselves: what we are seeing and hearing is negative, but the promises are still too positive to be drowned out by what appear to be the faux pas of a beginner leader.They still hoped and believed that Pohamba’s team would be guided by a set of fundamental values, ethics of integrity, accountability, good governance and the equality of all Namibians.Pohamba actually arrived with a gentle bang when he proclaimed that he would personally see to it that official deviances such as corruption, maladministration, malpractice, misuse of State resources and graft would be interred in the past, and that there would be zero tolerance of all these ills that were cancers in the body of the nation.His promise to create a clean government, in addition to the positive undertakings mentioned above, expressed excellent sentiments indeed, and the message was too loud to be forgotten.Hence Namibians thought it necessary to give Pohamba time and breathing space to find himself, after which they hoped he would deliver on his promises.What followed, however, seems to weave a different tapestry altogether, and it is no longer too early to start to dissect Pohamba’s governance during the months he has been in office.One year later, one discerns several weaknesses in the Pohamba Administration that are cause for concern.The country and the nation will be better served if the issues now emerging are identified and addressed before it is too late.First, the size of the Cabinet ran counter to the sentiments that had endeared Pohamba to the people, namely that the resources of the nation are meagre, and would best be spent on serving the needs of the people, rather than on maintaining the living standards of the ‘honourable’ officials.People saw old wine in new bottles, which were about to leak.The Cabinet already looked unwieldy for a population so small and which needed instead a lean and mean Cabinet to start delivering.Bloated cabinets in Africa constitute one of the killer diseases in these economies.The manner in which resources in Namibia are spent on the executive makes Namibians look like fools when their leaders appeal for international aid from nations that are richer – and yet more frugal with their resources.For instance, recently President Pohamba was in dialogue with the Federal Republic of Germany, and a great deal of that discussion concerned aid for Namibia.Germany, with a population of over 80 million people, has only 13 cabinet ministers.Yet Namibia, with a population of under two million, boasts 27 Cabinet ministers, before deputy ministers are added.South Africa, with a population of 45 million, employs 27 ministers – the same number as Namibia.Botswana, with almost the same size of population as Namibia, has 14 ministers and five deputy ministers, and Botswana is wealthier than Namibia.It is so notable that even a struggling nation such as Ethiopia, with over 76 million people, is prudent enough to deploy only 20 ministers.When one adds up the total size of the Namibian Cabinet, that is ministers and deputy ministers and those invited to be in Cabinet when they should not be – considering the fact that all of them are entitled to a significant number of allowances and other perks (transport, housing, entertainment and constituency allowances) – the result seriously strains public resources and service delivery in general.This completely undermines the promise Pohamba made to exercise better oversight over the use of public resources.Furthermore, the President and those around him have yet to make the case that these ‘ministers for life’ are retained because they have been effective in executing their tasks.Perhaps Pohamba would have fared better by keeping them on as members of the legis
lature where they can shout slogans and be paid at the end of the month! The resources wasted on them represent the money of taxpayers and foreign donations that should reach the most vulnerable citizens.At the moment there is enough to suggest that President Pohamba, like most African presidents, lacks a basic understanding and appreciation of the scarcity of resources at his and the country’s disposal.The fundamental laws of the treasury and economics dictate that you work with what you have, not what you wish to have.Their lack of understanding allows most African leaders to exercise unfettered power to dish out positions to their loyalists and party buddies.Namibia, like most of Africa, is poor, but the leaders do not behave as if they are poor.Yet they have the audacity to go to the better-organised economies and beg for aid with the claim of being poor.The irony is that Nujoma began better than Pohamba in this respect in 1990, appointing his first Cabinet of fewer than 18 ministers.Nujoma’s system became corrupt over time as he moved towards the politics of triumphalism and of patronage in the latter years of his reign.In fact Nujoma’s first Cabinet comprised a very strong team, containing ministers who knew what was at stake, and who displayed a commitment to the nation.One only has to call to mind the first Cabinet’s commitment to national reconciliation and responsible handling of the land question! With Nujoma’s first Cabinet, Namibia’s image that was created and managed by the ministry of foreign affairs was, to all intents and purposes, the envy of many African states.Second, Pohamba was believed when he promised unity in the country and service delivery to improve the lives of all Namibians.Most people understood that he would start creating a culture of appointing his team on the basis of merit and competency.What they actually saw was exactly the same as what Nujoma did, namely appointing comrades to ministerial positions not because they were the best in the country, but because they were the most loyal Swapo members.To be appointed, people merely needed to demonstrate how ‘Swapo’ they were, even if their conduct as leaders had been at the expense of the people.Strangely enough, it is the ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ who are most passionate about the business of Swapo rather than those who sacrificed their lives to build the movement and the party.The ‘quarter-to-twelve Swapos’ are the ones spitting fire about loyalty and discipline – about which they know nothing.They do not even pay respect to the values and principles that kept Swapo going when it was most dangerous to be a Swapo cadre.The trouble with retaining the same people who have been ministers for 10 or 16 years is that in many respects this practice is not helpful.Most of them cannot be said to have been so effective that they are indispensable in the management of the affairs of the nation.They are not even indispensable to the business of the party.They are indispensable only to themselves and their un-argued political careers.For the most part, many of the ministers are there only because they are Swapo apparatchiks.After all, the call for Nujoma not to have been given a fourth term had to do with the need for change.If Nujoma, who was not a bad president, was required to leave in order to give way to others, why does the same logic not apply to these ‘ministers for life’? Furthermore, these ministers were never elected directly by the people.They occupy their positions at the invitation of the president.At the very least one would feel better if they were in possession of the skills and knowledge to do the work the president tasked them with.The fact of the matter is that they are neither competent nor energetic nor sufficiently passionate to fulfil their functions.What they know best is how to please somebody – not the people, but the President.If Pohamba is seen to have squandered the trust capital of the people, he is likely to be frustrated by his own ministers, most of whom owe their loyalty and political success to Nujoma.As they say: one never gets a second chance to make a first impression! Third, Pohamba was expected to break the cycle of looking in the same old place for people to appoint as ministers, and was expected to cast net more widely as he assembled his team to take the country forward.There are Namibians with skills, with knowledge, with passion, with the intellectual capital to serve the nation.What people have acquired by way of their academic education and technical skills must be seen as the foundation for them to serve their country.There was nothing that stopped Pohamba from roping in capable people from the opposition who are in Parliament to augment the skills shortages in the ruling party.What should matter is what they can do for their country.As long as the President continues to punish those with skills and reward those with no skills or merit, to serve, he will be remembered to have served the nation ill.After 16 years of independence and self-rule, the Namibian leadership ought to have matured enough to move beyond the parochial interests of a political party or leader and think in terms of what is good for the nation as a whole.This is so because political parties come and go, but the nation remains.The practice of recycling party loyalists whom everybody knows cannot deliver has three main immediate consequences: (a) The system of governance acquires a culture of inefficiency and ineffectiveness, with the likely outcome being that over time, it can implode because mediocrity is economically unproductive and self-destructive; (b) The nation acquires a negative and apologetic self-understanding, exhibiting a tendency to justify bad and negative role models in leadership, the likely outcome of which is that the future leaders lose both respect for their leaders and interest in leadership roles as they develop disdain for buffoonery; (c) Namibia continues to sell itself short internally and internationally and ends up the laughing stock of other nations who deploy more capable and competent leaders, who bring honour, not ridicule, to their people.The result of the buddy system is that the ministers and deputy ministers know that they are not deserving of their lofty positions and become victims of their own insecurity.Thus they develop a cliquish culture that feeds gossip and rumour-mongering and they compete to inform the President in order to remain safe in their positions.Hence, ministers invent fictitious enemies of the State, better still of the President, because they feel the need to ‘brief’ the President, their main client.This culture then develops into a psychosis, engulfing the whole nation in fear and angst.The system as a whole becomes inefficient and dysfunctional and the people are alienated further from it and the leaders.The ministers fear the people and their only defence mechanism is to keep the President away from the people by telling him what they think he wants to hear so that their tenure is secured.This is how sycophancy is bred.This executive branch of government never functions as accurate and honest mirrors of the president.They run to tell him not what would help him succeed, but what would make themselves look good in the eyes of their master.The case could be made that most of Namibia’s ministers today attend meetings, go to work, as a lifestyle, not to serve the nation.They are not even eager to learn in order to improve their competency.They do what they do to please the President and, better yet, the party.In the end, the nation suffers on the scaffold of political games and one-upmanship.This is how many African states have imploded and their leadership eventually swept away! The political party that distributes the executive jobs becomes more important than the Constitution of the nation or even the nation as a whole.The ruling party is the constituency that the ministers serve.The way for them to demonstrate their good work is not by delivering services to the people, but by attending as many meetings as possible where they will be sure to be noticed by the President or Prime Minister, or by
wearing the party shirt, cap or scarf with the loudest colours.Fourth, it is fair to have expected Pohamba to have put a stop to some of the State practices that neither bring honour to Government and the people, nor are they economically justifiable.Such practices include the custom that Nujoma introduced that whenever the President leaves the country, the Cabinet is expected to line up at the airport to bid farewell to him and receive him again when he returns.Functioning democracies that have the means to afford this, do not do it, as it is a waste of economic time.In Namibia, even ambassadors or heads of foreign missions are expected to be at the airport when the President travels and returns.Both Pohamba and Prime Minister Nahas Angula have begun to question some of the unintelligent customs that cost resources.It is time for Namibia to stop practices that only make all of us look like foolish and unintelligent inhabitants of a ‘Banana Republic’.Fifth, Pohamba created the expectation that he would champion unity in the party and the country in ways that would demonstrate to the nation and the world that he was a man of the people.What has become evident is that he is more of a Swapo Vice President than the leader of the nation.Almost everything he does has to be processed through the party leadership, which means that Nujoma must approve it.Owing to the issues of corruption, the ongoing divisions in the ruling party and the politics of the newly rediscovered mass graves in Enhana and elsewhere, as President of the country, Pohamba was expected to convey a message that would assure the nation that this style of party politics is not the way he intends to lead the nation.His silence could be and was indeed interpreted as the result of Swapo discipline.But for a President there is more at stake than sitting quietly and appearing ineffective.After all, politics is more about perception than reality.The perception now is that Nujoma is the leader not only of the party but of the country, that Nujoma is Pohamba’s boss – that the President of the country is at the beck and call of the president of the party.This is a very dangerous perception! The point here is that whether Pohamba knows or realises the outcome of his obsequiousness to Nujoma (admittedly his sanctioner and campaign manager) or not, he ought to appreciate that he is now the President of the Republic of Namibia.He is therefore not merely vice president of the ruling party, Swapo.He also ought to internalise the fact that he, unlike any of his ministers, is the only one who was elected directly by the people, and that therefore Nujoma has no power to intimidate him any longer.He is now the leader of the nation even if he remains mindful of the fact that Nujoma anointed him in order to frustrate the party for not fighting for him to stay on as President for the fourth term.Pohamba ought to realise that as he takes the nation into 2006, he is the leader and must lead, not simply manage Nujoma’s choices and agendas.It is time for leadership, not uninformed discipline.History instructs us over and over again that most nations stand or fall on leadership.That time for President Pohamba is NOW.In other words, if Pohamba continues in 2006 to act as he did in 2005, with the right words yet at a slow pace, if not inaction, he is likely to succeed in disappointing more and more Namibians.This is not to say he is a bad person.He just has not started to lead the nation in accordance with his own passions.In fact, Pohamba is so bogged down that even in small matters he is likely to say that he must consult first.What he says is that he must get approval from the leader(s) first.He is now, fortunately or unfortunately, the leader of the nation of Namibia.He was elected by citizens, not only Swapo members, to lead.He is not a manager who needs to read the right pages of the manual.Nor should he try to copy Nujoma.Otherwise the nation will move on and leave him behind.President Pohamba can demonstrate a good deal of this when he announces his Cabinet reshuffle early in 2006.The nation will have given him ample time to show that he is what they want to believe he is: a leader whose time has come! This is very important because the present line up of the Cabinet is anything but competent, and cannot create the kind of legacy that Pohamba would like to be remembered by.The nation continues to wait to see the real Pohamba, and his A-Team that will take his vision for Namibia forward.Human nature dictates that if people are kept waiting too long, disillusionment takes over.The danger for Pohamba is that if the time comes when people begin to wonder about his leadership, they will forgive neither him nor themselves.They will blame him for having been a very weak leader when they needed one to steward them.They will blame themselves for having been cheated by their own liking for Pohamba, their good and kind uncle, but one for who the task of leadership was too big and they did not see it.They will blame Nujoma for having conned them into accepting Pohamba as a leader when Nujoma knew better, yet set the nation up to fail.In his first year as President, Pohamba did not have a functioning cabinet team.With a few exceptions, such as Fisheries and Marine Resources, Defence and Education, most of the appointments were either based upon NO logic at all, or the appointees were mediocre or downright incompetent.This does not imply that these are bad people.They are good human beings who are simply not leaders.They have no competency, no skills, and no passion beyond ruling party rhetoric.In sum, it would be fair to say that Pohamba arrived at the State House with a suitcase full of good ideas and excellent wishes.What he seems not to have brought with him was a game plan with a set of targets and deliverables spread over the period of the next five years.Had he possessed this, it would have been easier for him to determine what he needed, whom he needed and how he needed to pursue his goals aggressively.The Swapo Manifesto, which he upheld as the blueprint, cannot give him that.The team he inherited from Nujoma, both in State House and at the Tintenpalast, cannot offer him the game plan of others and help him succeed.It would appear that Pohamba himself has never developed a game plan for and with his leadership, as he has always been a loyal follower of Swapo.All his life he has never displayed the ambition which would have compelled him to develop a game plan.And game plans do not evolve suddenly.We know that a major factor that helped Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to lead Uganda out of the pit that had been dug by both Milton Obote and Idi Amin was his Comprehensive National Economic Development Plan, which, apparently, he had worked on long before he became president.One main reason for the absence of a game plan for Pohamba is Swapo’s failure to have a succession plan.Hence Nujoma pulled Pohamba’s name out of his magic hat, in the main to frustrate those presidential hopefuls who arguably had better plans for the country and cause chaos so that he would be needed to save the situation.And Nujoma is no newcomer to mischief making! Therefore, the major challenges for President Pohamba in 2006 are the following: First, to develop his own set of dreams and a game plan to pursue them.Second, to break the plan down into deliverables short, medium and long terms.Third, mobilise money and competent people to focus and deliver on the goals, failing which they are let go.Fourth, find the right communication instruments to brand him and communicate his messages appropriately and timeously and in tandem with one another.Fifth, Pohamba takes charge of the overall direction the country is to go while he is in office, surrounding himself with the right and competent people who will serve him and his agenda.Sixth, Pohamba states boldly and consistently that he is the President of the country and makes sure he is not hamstrung by Swapo politics.For all intents and purposes Pohamba was given a wider mandate than Nujoma ever had to lead Namibia.Seventh, Pohamba selects a few critical ministries, such as Education
, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry, Finance and Tourism and transforms them by firstly assigning them to very competent people for with these ministries Pohamba can wow the region and the international community so much so that he will stand out above many.Eighth, Pohamba continues and improves on what he started by cultivating sound and strategic relationships with leaders of the opposition and the media as both bouncing boards as well as conduits of his messages.Ninth, Pohamba leads the reconfiguration of Namibian’s relationship with South Africa and Germany as the main strategic partners in more ways than one, and develop programmes and packages to streamline them towards mutual benefits and interests.Tenth, the Pohamba Government leads and champions education reform within SADC which will lead to a dispensation of a standardised education system and quality for students in the region, the outcome of which would be acceptance of qualification by all institutions in the region qualifications from any of the members of the accredited institutions in the region.Lastly, Pohamba needs to become his own man and strengthen the perception that he is the conscience of the nation post-independence, just as Nujoma was the conscience of pre-independence Namibia.This he must do as a matter of urgency, even if it leads to him alienating some of his Swapo comrades, not because he loves Swapo less, but because he loves Namibia more! This also means he must take the risks that go with the territory of transformational leadership.As the adage goes, standing still for him would be the fastest way of going backwards in this rapidly changing world.The challenge for the President here is that if he continues to be so careful not to risk anything, he will risk even more, including his own respect in the ruling party and his name in the history books.Finally, the absence of bold leadership accompanied by carefully thought-out goals with a decisive game plan, President Pohamba is invariably compelled to revert to Nujoma for clarity or to obtain the original copy of Nujoma’s game plan.And Nujoma will not give it.In fact, Nujoma wants to use it himself.By the looks of things, Nujoma does use his old game plan all the time.One hopes that there will never come a time when the Namibian people will be so disappointed, dissatisfied and disenchanted with Pohamba’s leadership that they will look with nostalgia to Nujoma, the current President Emeritus—and convince themselves that only he, the Founding Father of the Nation, is the only one with the fix!
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