So What if NWR is Sold?

Dear politician,

What will you do with N$2 billion of taxpayer (i.e. public) money?

1. Spend the N$2 billion to rescue perennially failing government-run companies.
2. Use that money to fulfil your election campaign promises.
3. Park it in a bank account and watch it.

Surely, every politician who received votes taking them to parliament this year picked number two and will use the N$2 billion to do away with hunger, unemployment, housing shortages, education for the masses…

We at The Namibian (and, we believe, it’s the same with the majority of Namibia’s population) deeply hope the new crop of lawmakers will start to solve the country’s ills and stop squandering taxpayer funds on pet projects.

N$2 billion is what the government planned to spend in the current financial year to bail out 11 state-owned companies.

Alas! Recent utterances by one of the most vocal incoming lawmakers, and some of the ruling Swapo’s priorities, do not inspire confidence.

Self-styled “revolutionary” Affirmative Reposition leader Job Amupanda is the latest to make us pause to consider whether Namibia can fix the rot of the past several decades.

Amupanda this time wants to stop the revamping of the Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR). He claims that NWR were undertaking measures that will lead to employees losing jobs.

“The truth is that they started a process of selling and/or handing over 14 resorts/lodges of [the] government,” Amupanda says.

NWR managing director Matthias Ngwangwama accuses Amupanda of spreading lies and says there were no plans to sell or privatise lodges.

If they are serious about rescuing NWR, such outright denial is hard to believe. NWR has called for consultants to undertake a “comprehensive audit … to assess the performance of some of our facilities”. The company wants advice “on a range of options, including entering into a public-private partnership, outsourcing or any other option”.

Government leaders should not panic and try to quell populists rhetoric. NWR and many of the state-owned institutions need genuine revolutionary business surgery instead of placating politicians.

Amupanda and other aspiring rulers need to appreciate that public resources are finite. Taxpayer funds must be used for the greater good. Saving poorly run entities is squandering resources to keep lining the pockets of few lavishly paid managers who keep ruining public institutions.

The government used more than N$2 billion to support 11 government-owned companies that should be profitable if they were not badly managed: NWR, Zambezi Waterfront, TransNamib, Roads Contractor Company, Namibia Industrial agency, Namibia Institute for Pathology, Namibia Airports Company. Meatco, Lüderitz Waterfront, Epangelo Mining Company, and the Agro-Marketing Trade Agency.

Add other parastatals not listed here and many more billions of taxpayer money is spent yearly without accountability and amid poor productivity.

NWR, like many state-owned businesses, have received hundreds of millions of dollars in bailouts without any returns to the shareholders, the citizens of Namibia.

Will Amupanda and fellow politicians keep pumping their own money into businesses that give them no returns or are they merely reckless because it’s taxpayer money?

The issue is not whether NWR, Air Namibia or other state-owned companies should be bailed out to maintain a few cushy jobs. Are they performing for the common good?

It makes no sense to spend more than N$2 billion on mismanagement while 1.2 million people are going hungry to the point of scrambling for food at political rallies and memorial services, or dying from hunger.