Dear president-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, regardless of political affiliations, I believe most Namibians are happy with your appointment as president of Namibia.
Much of our satisfaction comes from the hope that as a woman you will replace the politics of the belly with policies grown from caring hearts and sensible minds.
Indeed, Namibia’s government is desperately in need of direction based on public service, humanity and common sense.
Not only has the preoccupation with the belly cost us all great sums of public money, but it has drawn our attention away from pressing problems.
As you retire to your presidential bed on 21 March, I hope you are proud and content. But please pause and ponder the circumstances of more than 720 000 – or one in five – of our fellow citizens, and where they lie on the first night of your presidency.
They are urban shackdwellers. Most of them live in corrugated iron structures – popularly called uumbashu.
SOARING NUMBERS
Namibia had some 10 288 urban uumbashu in 1991. That number almost trebled to 29 765 in 2001 before soaring to 77 899 in 2011, and then to 217 069 in 2023 – these are the official census numbers recorded since independence.
Between 2011 and 2023, the number grew at 8.9% a year. Assuming this rate has continued, in 2025 the number of urban shacks will reach about 257 000 in which some 720 000 Namibians try to sleep each night
It is alarming. But what makes the number terrifying is an understanding of the circumstances in which so many live. The 720 000 people in a quarter of a million uumbashu reside illegitimately on land to which they have no secure rights.
Their neighbourhood slums often lack water and electricity, sewage and refuse removal services. Road access is usually rudimentary.
The ghettos are often miles from transport, shops, schools, clinics and other services and amenities.
Tens of thousands of slum dwellers defecate in plastic bags discarded in riverbeds, or scurry to defecate in secluded spots under the cover of darkness if they wake before dawn.
EXTREME HARDSHIPS
There are other pervasive and extreme hardships. In the absence of land ownership, families cannot use their properties to build wealth in the form of capital resources and reserves.
They have no incentives to use savings to develop the value of their homes. Quite literally, shack dwellers and their families are kept poorer than their fellow Namibians.
The risk of disease is high. The diseases that potentially lurk in informal settlements are concerning: Cholera, hepatitis, pneumonia, influenza, diphtheria, gastroenteritis and others.
Shack dwellers live where the risk of severe disease is much greater. These crowded conditions also generate social ills that often lead to conflicts and crime.
Finally, there is the immorality of it: How Namibia discriminates against so many people. Their circumstances are not based on colour but on class.
They are the second- or third-class citizens of Namibia. This is disgraceful; a consequence of bad governance surprisingly rooted in the policies of a party that takes pride in having freed Namibians from discrimination.
And the final damnation: There is no logical, defendable reason for one in five Namibians to live in slums.
We have abundant land and money is not short. Billions of dollars have been spent on failed and looted enterprises over the years.
Leaders repeatedly choose to spend public money on futile pursuits and institutions, ignoring the rights and dignity of hundreds of thousands of Namibians.
A year ago, the legislature appropriated N$750 million to provide serviced, surveyed land for low-income families. Little of that money has been spent.
But public money was used to build a 7.5 kilometre face-brick wall along the new B1 highway to hide informal settlements at Okahandja. Surely the millions spent on the wall should have been used to help solve the problem, rather than hide it.
HOME ADVANTAGES
Yes, there have been many housing and land development projects. All, however, have been misdirected, pilfered by property developers, or ineffectively small.
Collectively, all these projects have done is slow the rate of growth of slums by a tiny margin. As the official numbers make clear: Namibia’s slums, ghettos, or shanty towns have skyrocketed, as have the riches of the ruling class.
And there is no prospect of urban-rural migration being reversed or significant numbers of slum dwellers becoming wealthy enough to buy serviced properties in formal urban areas.
Similar problems blight many countries. However, Namibia has two distinct advantages: The number of slum dwellers is comparatively small and we have the financial resources to respect and provide everyone with secure, serviced land on which they can develop the valuable assets that come from home ownership, and in a healthy environment.
But what Namibia, its government and ruling party lacks is resolve and stamina.
IT CAN BE DONE
Meekulu Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, I wish you no discomfort but I hope you agonise over the conditions in which many Namibians – one in five – sleep: .
Sincerely, I hope you create a government of caring, committed and competent people who will help rid Namibia of its slums.
A few towns have demonstrated it is possible, like Okahao. Indeed, please implement a national programme to ‘Rid Namibia of its Slums’ by 2035.
Tens of thousands of new surveyed, titled and serviced urban plots should be provided and sold as cheaply as possible.
Their owners can then build their own houses according to their needs and means, and will then have secure incentives to expand and improve their properties with time.
Densely settled informal settlements can be converted into community-managed units equivalent to urban sectional title blocks in which individually owned properties often cover less than 100 square metres.
With purpose, honesty and competence it can be done, but only if you and your colleagues want to.
This will be your legacy, and every reason for you to be addressed henceforth as your excellency Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.
- John Mendelsohn is passionate about education, rural economies, and land rights.
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