What is the State of the Nation?

In her State of the nation address (Sona), president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was keen to portray a Namibian nation of peace and development.

The president underlined economic upturn, foreign investments and revived support for sectors like green hydrogen, mining and logistics.

However, the Sona was unfortunately a missed opportunity for the president to move the national conversation away from austerity, investor‑first frameworks and slow reforms, and toward a more people‑centred, redistributive, and justice‑driven agenda. The president referenced investments in agriculture, education, health, renewable energy, and institutional capacity building, for example, but these investments are insufficient to undo decades of inequality.

The development budget (N$12.8 billion) remains small relative to the scale of unemployment and poverty.

Although there has been no new national poverty survey since 2015/16, several indicators suggest that economic pressures have increased.

It is therefore strange the president had nothing to say about the cost-of-living crisis.

Foreign investment does not automatically translate into decent employment. If anything, Namibia’s investment‑led model risks reproducing an extractive economy controlled by global corporations.

Even with gross domestic product expansion, the situation for workers, youth and informal traders remains precarious.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Transformation requires democratising the economy, not only expanding it.

Sona recognised unemployment, especially youth unemployment, but outlined solutions largely around private‑sector employment creation, investment inducements and an entrepreneurship agenda.

However, the unemployment crisis demands structural – not surface – solutions.

The private sector cannot and will not take in jobless people at the scale needed.

Public sector employment, working people’s cooperatives, and state‑driven industrialisation are essential to generate dignified employment.

Youth unemployment is a political crisis, not a technical issue, and needs a transformative – not incremental – strategy.

The Sona mentioned social grants and safety nets, but Namibia’s grants remain too low to significantly decrease poverty. And the country still lacks a job guarantee programme.

Rising food prices, transport costs and housing expenses mean that working people are falling deeper into difficulties, even when employed.

Sona did not tackle the magnitude of the social disaster. It highlighted advances in health infrastructure, education results and the digitalisation of government facilities.

But public services require transformation, not incremental change.

FUNDAMENTALS

Public hospitals continue to be understaffed and under‑resourced, with working people bearing the burden of systemic disregard.

Education inequality lives on, with rural and township schools short of basic resources.

Digitalisation cannot replace investment in human capacity, especially in frontline services.

Sona concentrated on administrative reforms rather than structural investment in public goods.

While it cited land delivery and housing projects, for instance, Namibia’s housing disaster is a crisis of affordability, not just supply. Market‑driven housing models disregard the working class.

What is needed is large‑scale public housing, the regulation of rent, community‑driven land allocation and urban land reform. 

Working people and trade unions were non-existent in the Sona narrative. Issues like precarious work, labour broking, undermining of trade unions and unsafe workplaces were not tackled.

The fact of the matter is that workers’ rights and collective bargaining should be fundamental to national development, not marginal.

PUBLIC RESOURCES, PRIVATE WEALTH

The Sona hailed Namibia’s evolving green hydrogen sector. But we must ask: Who will own the infrastructure? Who will control the profits?

The criticism is not of green hydrogen itself but against a model where public resources produce private wealth

President Nandi-Ndaitwah made no commitment to wealth taxes, windfall taxes or stronger corporate taxation, no universal basic services framework (free transport, free meals at schools, expanded public healthcare), no public employment guarantee to address mass unemployment, no critique of austerity or neoliberal policy constraints, and no clear plan to socialise natural resource wealth beyond existing frameworks.

If anything, the Sona emphasised stability – a key feature of class compromise.

Namibia’s natural wealth will thus continue to generate private surplus value, which is a continuation of neo‑colonial economic structures, where extraction benefits big business more than working people.

* The authors are members of the Marxist Group of Namibia.

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