Reforming Government

“The civil service is like a tortoise. It goes slowly about its business but pick it up or touch it and it stops altogether.”

This quote is attributed to the late Dr Piet Koornhof, a former South African National Party cabinet minister.

“Namibia’s civil service is inefficient.” That was the blunt assessment by the head of the administrative arm of the government, Hage Geingob, when he was prime minister.

Geingob lashed out at some senior civil servants, including permanent secretaries, saying he was disappointed about the lack of efficiency and bad attitude in the public service.

He said some permanent secretaries had become “too comfortable” and had “forgotten their purpose”.

These two quotes will inform my discussion about our government in this belated piece as president-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has already decided on the structure of her incoming administration.

THE CHEETAH ‘IDENTITY’

Our government fears none of its neighbours and brooks no opposition.

It is slow and works at a snail’s pace. Like an elephant, once it starts moving it can damage a lot in its way – crops, trees and even homesteads.

And if you encounter its convoy crossing the road anywhere between the Okavango and Zambezi rivers, please get off the road.
Now, who needs all this trouble?

Can’t we think of an alternative form of government? How about a cheetah? It is attentive, fast, agile, responsive and much more streamlined than the bulky elephant.

It causes less damage – except the normal expenditure a cheetah government would incur. 

What I propose is not your usual bottom-up approach to the government’s reform style, but top down.

I hope it will be less bumpy – with a ‘human face’ as free-marketeers are wont to say. But don’t rule out some debris being strewn along the way. 

Let’s start with some cutting, pasting and merging. First to go should be the useless vice presidential position. Like gone. History.

Or was it created to fill the position of president if he/she should die as happened after Geingob’s death?

The other position which must be scrapped is deputy prime minister. Our system is bloated and top heavy.

Then we have the two ministries of education which should be merged, as they once were. I have no clue what the Ministry of Higher Education, Technology and Innovation does.

This is a function that must be left to our universities and not to ministers, some of whom might not be experts in those areas.

This merging can be done. We have done it before with the public enterprise ministry and finance, war veterans and defence.

‘PROBLEM KIDS’

Then we have those two ‘problem kids’ – the National Youth Council and National Youth Service which should be integrated as some people have previously suggested.

Or better still, they should, as before, resort under the ministry of youth and sport.

Then at least we could build a well-rounded young Namibian persona, strong physically and mentally.

I have a problem with the entity called the National Planning Commission.

The various plans are hardly implemented and the latest one, the National Development Plan (NDP) 6, is now just another white elephant.

Herein lies the problem: How to marry the Swapo manifesto with various NDPs.

Vision 2023 or Harambee Prosperity Plan?

Then there’s the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board – a parastatal of sorts with a board and investment ambassadors posted to a number of countries to look for investment.

It seems these people are actually just on paid holiday in those capitals.

During Geingob’s term, press briefings would be held telling the nation that so many millions, if not billions, of investment pledges were in the pipeline.

But we weren’t told who the investors were or in which sectors they planned to invest. These pipelines still need to reach Namibian shores.

Mind you, we have the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade, as well as trade attaches at our foreign missions who could scout for foreign investment.

THE URGENCY OF NOW

While on foreign affairs, let me state that I have a problem with using our foreign missions as dumping grounds for failed or retired politicians.

How can they perform in some of those “rough neighbourhoods” to borrow from former American diplomat Chester Crocker’s excellent book: ‘High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighbourhood?’

Ideally, people posted to our missions should have broad training in international relations, international law, trade, diplomacy, political science or even foreign languages.

Such people should be culturally and politically savvy.

We have seen accountants, auditors and home economists being posted as ambassadors. That is why training in some of the above mentioned fields should be required.

What is to be done? I agree with professor Andre du Pisani that: “This will require an urgent reset of diplomatic training, building credible research capacity, accompanied by a restructuring of the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation.”

I couldn’t agree more. Do we have a cheetah now?

• – Alexactus T Kaure is a freelance writer and deconstructionist scholar.

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