Namibians who are not fast asleep or have their lips stuck to the derrieres of the ruling elite have renewed the call for a universal basic income grant (BIG).
I’ve long been asking for it. Nay, pleading for it. We need to do something drastic about the abject poverty most Namibians live in.
With even employed Namibians struggling to make ends meet I cannot support a conditional BIG.
It must be universal, unconditional and in cash.
Everyone under 60 should get it.
If we ever needed convincing we should remember that 800 000 Namibians applied for the famous once-off N$750 emergency income grant initiated by the government at the start of the lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
According to the ministry of labour, more than 5 700 employees were retrenched between the end of March and June this year.
Before Covid-19 the economy was already well and truly in the toilet.
Namibians have been fighting for a BIG for almost 20 years.
BIG was proposed by the Namibia Tax Consortium in 2002 and the coalition was formed in 2004.
Omitara and Otjivero were chosen as pilot sites for the BIG project by a coalition of civil society organisations between 2008 and 2009.
Every person under the age of 60, as pensioners already receive a state grant, was given N$100 per month.
The project ended in April 2014 when funds ran out.
The coalition’s research found that with the grant, residents made use of the local clinic more, and average household debt fell from N$1 215 to N$772 per month. BIG cut the poverty rate of the village in half. The decline in food poverty was accompanied by a decline in child malnutrition. Incidence of underweight children fell by 75%.
BIG enabled recipients to increase work and self-employment. The portion of residents (above the age of 15) engaged in income-generating activities increased by 25%. School attendance increased, with the dropout rate falling to almost nothing.
Researchers found no evidence of increased abuse of alcohol.
The crime rate fell by 42%.
A red N$100 note did that.
The coordinator of the Big Coalition, Wilfred Diergaardt, said the grant reduced women’s dependence on men and improved the effectiveness of HIV patients to get antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
Back then bishop Zephania Kameeta spearheaded the BIG Coalition.
He apparently begged president Geingob for a Cabinet job in 2015 and was given the poverty eradication portfolio. However, Swapomelitis took over and he reduced himself to a kulukuta artist.
Despite promises to bring a BIG law, Kameeta didn’t. Namibians are now poorer than when Kameeta was sworn in.
He should have stayed emeritus what what.
I’d give my left nut for a BIG where every man, woman and child will receive a reliable income, albeit small.
As with the EIG, stringent qualification criteria should be kept to a minimum if not completely ignored. Eliminating qualification requirements reduces costly bureaucracy and saves time.
Having found a new lease of life after Kameeta showed them exactly who he is, the BIG Coalition, spearheaded by the Economic and Social Justice Trust, recently proposed a monthly grant of N$500.
I hear you squirm at the amount. But…
Why are we not asking more aggressively where the money comes from to sustain the defence budget, the exorbitant salaries for political office-bearers, the S&T of civil servants or how much we could save by being more efficient and less corrupt?
Why always ask where the money will come from when it’s poor people’s turn to eat?
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