Some Namibians are praying for me to fail – Geingob

PRESIDENT Hage Geingob says some Namibians are praying for his administration to fail.

He said this in an interview with the NBC on New Year’s Day, during which he also said the economy would improve in 2019.

“I can tell you, we are out of the woods, I think. The economy is going to pick up. These are the things we need to look forward to. Not somebody who is praying for Namibia to fail. How can citizens pray [for failure],” he said.

The president claimed that some people were too negative.

“There are pessimists. There are people in Namibia who want the country to fail. I’ve never seen a thing like that. Praying that things go wrong,” Geingob added.

He said that he got the impression that some people were “praying and hoping that he fails” to run the country properly.

Namibia entered an economic depression in November 2018 after experiencing 10 consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

In the interview Geingob also addressed the issue of his foreign trips in 2018.

reported last month that Geingob travelled to 16 countries, spent 64 days abroad and qualified for an estimated N$850 000 in travel allowances in 2018.

The president did not provide information on the national benefit of those trips when asked by last year.

However, he attempted to explain the benefits to NBC this week.

“Namibians ought to be proud of that. Namibians are looking for fault lines. There are some presidents who are never invited [to international events],” he said.

Geingob added: “I really enjoyed the front page of [about my traveling]. But I’m doing my job. We are invited. We are in demand. If you are a president and you are not invited, it’s a shame.”

He claimed that most trips were as a result of his Southern African Development Community chairmanship duties or to the United Nations events. However, evidence shows that most of his trips were not related to SADC or UN business or activities.

Geingob who entered office in 2015 campaigning on transparency and accountability has cut down on the number of press conferences where he would face questions from the media about his administration’s achievements.

The president did not host an end of year press conference in 2018.

Geingob instead had an interview with the NBC this week to comment on several issues.