Welcome Back, Honourable Employees of Namibian Taxpayers

Many of you went back to work, clocked in, and immediately resumed the grind.

For some reason, this year is special for members of parliament.

They couldn’t just go back to work without a ceremony with marching bands, fatcakes and Oros. Welcome back, our employees.

You know the vibe. You were probably back at work three weeks ago already. You clocked in and were greeted with a “where is the report?” from a supervisor or the ‘foroman’.

Lunch break came with exchanged fatcakes and deeply traumatic stories about gravel roads that should qualify as natural disasters. For the average Namibian, showing up to work is not an event.

To everyone else, it’s just the return to the battlefield.

But if you are a member of parliament, reporting for duty is apparently an Olympic sport. It requires four hours of ceremony, a prayer, a choir, a marching band, free lunch, and enough “honourable” titles thrown around to make an induna feel casually under-dressed.

In fact, they dress up and take selfies as if they are at the Katutura Fashion Week Mess.

Have you noticed how much effort goes into opening things that were never closed? I mean, they are simply ‘commencing’ after a nice taxpayer-funded holiday, right?

No, we need the brass band. We need the red carpet laid out in the sun so the mothballs can properly evacuate the suits. We need speeches that last longer than a taxi ride from Havana to Maerua Mall. Mbuae otjiti.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country is grinding. The lady selling magwinyas (fatcakes) on the corner did not need a four-hour inauguration for her deepfrying pan this year.

She lit the fire and got to work. We have to pay tax to fund the Homecoming of the Queens and Kings of Parliament.

You saw the broadcasts and the level of self-congratulation was breathtaking. It was as if turning up to the office they are paid to occupy was a gift to the gods.

This reminds me of the buffoonery of the presidential airport send-offs. I don’t see much of that no more, but I bet they still do it without sending the tape to the NBC. This one really tests my faith. Do they still do this, though?

Picture it. The president needs to fly to Oranjemund. Or maybe just across the border to attend a summit that could have been a Zoom call with better Wi-Fi.

Does the president simply go? Of course not. That would suggest efficiency. Instead, we summon six black SUVs, engines idling, burning fuel like it has a use-by date, to transport half the Cabinet to Hosea Kutako airport.

I once stood near a petrol station watching this exact spectacle. An old tate next to me watched the blue lights flash past, shook his head slowly, and muttered, “MXM, aandag soek!”

He was not wrong. It is attention-seeking in its purest form. Six ministers, each with ministries to run and files to sign, stand in a neat little line on the tarmac like pupils waiting for morning assembly.

They squint into the sun, wave the plane goodbye, and then jump back into their convoys to drive 30 minutes back to town.

What is the output here? What is the key performance indicator for waving at a jet? If I left my job every time my manager boarded a flight, I would be fired before the plane reached cruising altitude. For VVIPs though, this is called statecraft.

Whenever you ask why we do these things, the answer is always the same. “Protocol”. Or my personal favourite, “tradition”.

In Namibia, protocol is the magic word used to justify activities that make absolutely no sense in the 21st century. It explains why a simple meeting cannot start without 20 minutes of acknowledging Directors of Ceremonies, Excellencies, and All Protocol Observed.

By the time the meeting reaches its actual point, everyone is either asleep or mentally planning lunch.

Ordinary citizens do not enjoy the luxury of protocol.

At the clinic, the protocol is sit on that plastic chair and wait.

If you are a teacher, the protocol is find a way to explain this with no textbooks.

We live in the world of get it done or get left behind.

Yet our leaders operate in a parallel universe where the activity of leadership, the driving, the waving, the ribbon cutting, the standing in lines, have replaced the actual work of leadership.

They are so busy being “honourable” that they occasionally forget to be useful.

Oops.

This was not meant to sound critical.

But sometimes even satire struggles to twist pure nonsense into something softer.

With that said, let us just leave it there for now.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.