Political Perspective

ONE should be pleased to hear that a select committee is hearing public submissions on the State-Owned Enterprises Bill, but I’m not sure that this isn’t once again a waste of time because the persistent problem of parastatals messing up isn’t as complicated as it is made out to be.

After a host of remedial initiatives over a number of years to try and deal with the issue, the current attempt may succeed only as a forum to air views on the subject rather than get us to the root of the problems plaguing the SOE sector. WHILE kudos must go to the National Council for initiating the discussion (the National Assembly couldn’t be bothered and just put the Bill through!) I’m not entirely sure that a lot of what is said isn’t Greek to them.Not their fault perhaps, but certainly both Houses are supposed to have a phalanx of researchers and legal people, PAID I believe, to brief, advise, and if necessary even coach MPs on the right questions to ask in special interest cases such as these.Much was said at the start of the hearing this week.Many key people pronouncing on the do’s and don’ts of the SOE Bill, which is fine, but it won’t help guide us towards a solution unless we look closely at the aspect which is key to SOE success: having properly qualified people in the right posts.We can’t compromise on this as we have done in the past, and we should start now by making the right decisions because the future of our economy is ultimately at stake.The Bill in question has been around a long time.One wonders, judging from the SOE representatives who seem to object to each and every aspect of it, whether they were even asked for input in the first place.And if I’m correct, then what is happening now is both too little and too late.Most (but not all) parastatals are in a mess because they don’t have the right people at the helm who in turn don’t employ properly qualified people.It is sad that even we in the media don’t have the staff or the capacity to do a study of the CEOs in question to find out just how many of them are competent in terms of qualifications and experience to head up some of these multi-million-dollar enterprises that are losing money hand over fist and who are being paid vast amounts of money to do so.This is why an argument as to whether the Minister should sign off on aspects such as investments, taking the matter out of the hands of the CEOs and Boards in question, is largely irrelevant.If the CEO isn’t competent, neither his or her staff, nor even the Board, to make the right business decisions, then in all likelihood the Minister isn’t either.So how will that help turn matters around ultimately? The very idea of parastatals is surely to make them as independent as possible of Government (otherwise they would simply be Ministries in their own right), and this is the direction in which we should move.Not, on the contrary, to set up these mini-empires and then put the decision-making back into the hands of Government.It is a contradiction in terms.The focus should surely be on making them efficient, self-sufficient and sustainable at the very least in the early stages, and finally to put money back into the coffers of Government.This in itself is rare, because few of them are in this position.Instead, Government continually has to bail them out, and this surely comes down to being a question of bad or corrupt management.And if our skills base is limited, then we surely have to admit this a decade and a half after Independence and get the RIGHT people to put these parastatals on their feet and not those who have the right connections.We simply cannot continue to allow the erosion of our very scarce financial resources in this manner, and on top of this, exonerate those in charge from any culpability in this regard.Government and parastatals need to be run like businesses.And in the private sector worldwide, if top business leaders who are paid vast amounts, preside over a dwindling profit base, they are usually speedily fired or replaced immediately.Not so in Namibia, so we really need to get tougher if we want to try and turn things around in the SOE sector.And finally, perhaps someone can tell us why this sort of initiative hasn’t or isn’t being undertaken by Lazarus Uandjua, whose appointment to head the Central Governance Agency was specifically designed to look at the restructuring of the SOEs in question, and who surely should be an expert on these things by now?WHILE kudos must go to the National Council for initiating the discussion (the National Assembly couldn’t be bothered and just put the Bill through!) I’m not entirely sure that a lot of what is said isn’t Greek to them.Not their fault perhaps, but certainly both Houses are supposed to have a phalanx of researchers and legal people, PAID I believe, to brief, advise, and if necessary even coach MPs on the right questions to ask in special interest cases such as these.Much was said at the start of the hearing this week.Many key people pronouncing on the do’s and don’ts of the SOE Bill, which is fine, but it won’t help guide us towards a solution unless we look closely at the aspect which is key to SOE success: having properly qualified people in the right posts.We can’t compromise on this as we have done in the past, and we should start now by making the right decisions because the future of our economy is ultimately at stake.The Bill in question has been around a long time.One wonders, judging from the SOE representatives who seem to object to each and every aspect of it, whether they were even asked for input in the first place.And if I’m correct, then what is happening now is both too little and too late.Most (but not all) parastatals are in a mess because they don’t have the right people at the helm who in turn don’t employ properly qualified people.It is sad that even we in the media don’t have the staff or the capacity to do a study of the CEOs in question to find out just how many of them are competent in terms of qualifications and experience to head up some of these multi-million-dollar enterprises that are losing money hand over fist and who are being paid vast amounts of money to do so.This is why an argument as to whether the Minister should sign off on aspects such as investments, taking the matter out of the hands of the CEOs and Boards in question, is largely irrelevant.If the CEO isn’t competent, neither his or her staff, nor even the Board, to make the right business decisions, then in all likelihood the Minister isn’t either.So how will that help turn matters around ultimately? The very idea of parastatals is surely to make them as independent as possible of Government (otherwise they would simply be Ministries in their own right), and this is the direction in which we should move.Not, on the contrary, to set up these mini-empires and then put the decision-making back into the hands of Government.It is a contradiction in terms.The focus should surely be on making them efficient, self-sufficient and sustainable at the very least in the early stages, and finally to put money back into the coffers of Government.This in itself is rare, because few of them are in this position.Instead, Government continually has to bail them out, and this surely comes down to being a question of bad or corrupt management.And if our skills base is limited, then we surely have to admit this a decade and a half after Independence and get the RIGHT people to put these parastatals on their feet and not those who have the right connections.We simply cannot continue to allow the erosion of our very scarce financial resources in this manner, and on top of this, exonerate those in charge from any culpability in this regard.Government and parastatals need to be run like businesses.And in the private sector worldwide, if top business leaders who are paid vast amounts, preside over a dwindling profit base, they are usually speedily fired or replaced immediately.Not so in Namibia, so we really need to get tougher if we want to try and turn things around in the SOE sector.And finally, perhaps someone can tell us why this sort of initiative hasn’t or isn’t being undertaken by Lazarus Uandjua, whose appointment to head the Central Governance Agency was specifically designed to look at the restructuring of the SOEs in question, and who surely should be an expert on these things by now?