Self-Enrichment Is Not Empowering

What Has Knowledge Katti done for Namibia in order to be made a multi-billionaire with public resources in the form of oil exploration licences instead of any other “previously disadvantaged” Namibian?

He is not the only one, by the way. We use Katti as an example because of the consistency of his “empowerment” in the oil industry over several presidential administrations since the 1990s.

We argue that time is long overdue that the government revisit the so-called black economic empowerment (BEE) policies.

BEE is nothing short of black economic enrichment for a select few individuals through political connections and giving kickbacks to senior government employees, especially directors and executive directors (aka permanent secretaries).

Ruling politicians should look at the statistics. Since independence in 1990, a few thousand black Namibians have no doubt become filthy rich on the back of selective appropriation of state resources that should have benefited many more.

Yet, the majority of Namibians have been getting poorer, poverty levels have become an eyesore with donor and government food aid not enough; unemployment has increased; education materials are inadequate; people die at hospital due to the absence of basic equipment…

All that while a few white and black Namibians became multimillionaires with little prosperity flowing to the masses.

It is time to pause. The government must undertake a thorough review of its so-called empowerment programmes.

The Fishrot scandal is a clear example of how the industry has been captured by a few.

Instead of “empowerment”, foreign and local businesses and individuals with money, especially whites, have learnt that it is easier to “rent a darkie” in order to get their hands on public resources.

Fishing quotas are given to a few, who then auction those resources to the highest bidders with vessels and factories, paying some millions of dollars to rentseeking darkies, who do nothing but take cash and splash it on foreign luxuries.

Many BEE schemes have created a lot of auctioneers, people who take the public’s common assets and auction them.

They then “donate” a pittance to schools and hospitals in the name of corporate social responsibility.

Why should a few be the ones auctioning oil, fishing and other public resources and not the government directly?

Between 2019 and 2024, the government raised about N$1.5 billion from directly auctioning the fishing quotas.

Can the public be shown what the BEE auction schemes have paid into the same tax coffers for being given those fishing licences over the same period.

BEE policies of enriching a few have retarded broader national development.

People like Katti and the Fishrot clique hoard the raw material, releasing bits to the real investors for a few millions of dollars and holding investors hostage with their connections to political power.

Rent-seeking auctioneers of public resources like Katti are known to stash hundreds of millions of dollars, which they made from the BEE schemes, in foreign/Swiss accounts and thus denying Namibia the use such money for development.

A lot of anecdotal evidence has shown that BEE policies have retarded mass prosperity not only through blatant corruption and theft of public funds, but by discouraging entrepreneurship, innovation and good old-style productivity like tilling the soil to produce food.

Stop confusing empowerment with enrichment of a small elite and their immediate families and friends, unless the aim of the politicians is to continue lining their pockets by selling out public resources.

Empowerment spells independence and freedom. Enrichment focuses on making a quick buck and perpetually depends on using public resources for rent-seeking, which ultimately reduces productivity and economic activity.

Time is overdue to undertake a review of the socalled empowerment policies so the economy can truly benefit the majority of Namibians.

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