The Challenges For PM Nahas Angula

This is the right time to be a Ghanaian”, said President John Kufuor of Ghana recently, having been bolstered by his country’s booming economy.Perhaps the same could be said of Namibia on the political front.

It definitely feels like the early years of Independence – the first half of the 1990s when everybody was feeling like a true Namibian before partisan politics and exclusionist policies came onto the scene. But President Pohamba has so far been making very good, broad and bold statements on a number of issues, indicating where he wants the country to go.And most, if not all, Namibians are supportive of that – including some of us who were initially sceptical about his vision.The onus is now on the Prime Minister’s Office to make sure that the President’s pronouncements are turned into achievable and verifiable programmes and projects.Your Office, Prime Minister, represents the President on the ground and oversees the daily functioning of other ministries to achieve proper co-ordination and action.I’m engaging you not only because you occupy that central role in Government but also as an advocate of a knowledge-based economy and society.Below are some issues that need some careful scrutiny, reappraisal and directional change: Policy-Making There is a clear need to streamline and harmonise Government’s policy-making processes.Substantive policies and decisions, of a cross-cutting nature, from other ministries and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) must go through the Prime Minister’s Office for careful analysis and evaluation by the Directorate of Policy Analysis in your Office (and this needs to be staffed with some of Namibia sharpest minds) to make sure that they don’t contradict each other or the President’s own vision.One humorous example along these lines occurred, in the mid-90s, when two ministries arrived in West Caprivi: one wanted to set up a community camp-site to attract tourists and thus generate revenue for the neglected San community and the other came with bulldozers to clear the same area to build a maximum-security prison for Namibia’s ever-expanding criminal population.This is just one small example but there are other more substantive instances where sometimes policies are at odds with one another.This shouldn’t be construed as deepening centralisation but rather to make sure that we are all on the same page.Parastatals These have become a bane and they never stop to bemuse, amuse and make headlines.And it is the same whether they are money-spinners or spenders.They all suffer from some aspects of corruption, theft, nepotism, cronyism and unrealistic salary and benefits packages.The so-called money-spinners such as NamPower, NamWater, Telecom, basically monopolies, have developed an appetite for charging exorbitant fees to finance the Gucci lifestyles of their managers and directors.They do this by going back to the consumers every now and then with an increase in fees.Most of our people are thus priced out of the system.Come to think of it, how does one start a small-scale enterprise if water, electricity and communications are hardly affordable? Here is what needed to be done: get rid of those non-essential, loss-making SOEs, revisit the salary structures of all SOEs and bring them on par with the rest of the Civil Service.For example, all CEOs must get the same salaries and benefits as the Permanent Secretaries and then work the rest of the salary structure accordingly.Please stop the haemorrhage – you have the power to.The old argument that it was necessary to pay these CEOs high salaries in order to retain them no longer holds.For even the private sector is feeling the squeeze because it cannot keep up with the high salaries in the public sector (refer to recent statements by Harold Pupkewitz).Secondly, some of the people in the SOEs are simply not employable in the private sector, and thirdly, the private sector in Namibia cannot absorb this many people because it is simply too small.Boards of directors on SOEs must be appointed strictly on merit and no one should serve on more than two boards – and they must be made to understand that serving on a board is not like having a second or third job and must therefore get a token sitting fee on ‘a take-it-or-leave-it’ basis.I would strongly urge the Prime Minister to seriously consider making use of volunteer managers and directors for SOEs.Big organisations such as the UN system widely make use of this.You would be surprised at the results.Agriculture We are slowly killing this sector, either through sheer neglect or lack of understanding of the link between agriculture and industrial development.There is now an urgent need to redefine the role and functions of AgriBank.So far, AgriBank has been nothing other than a financing club for the well-to-do in Namibian society – buying farms at highly inflated prices.The real farmers are the thousands of folks all over rural Namibia who eke out a living from the land.These are the people that AgriBank should concentrate on.We have to revisit water provision and pricing in rural Namibia.Provide the necessary incentives and subsidies to farmers.Let’s encourage them to produce more and leave the rest to them.And that’s why we need to reconsider the so-called Green Scheme – where the Government now becomes one big farmer.This is a lousy excuse to divert attention away from the real agricultural needs of farmers and the country.Besides another SOE that would be created to oversee the Green Scheme and an Irrigation Training Centre to be established, Government will unnecessarily crowd out the real farmers in the process.And instead of setting up a separate centre just to train farmers on irrigation; maybe the funds could be channelled through Unam, the Polytechnic or the Ministry of Agriculture’s extension services and still achieve the same objectives.Public Resources Philosophically and constitutionally, all natural resources in Namibia belong to its citizens – past, present and future, and must benefit all in society.The first generation used some and left the rest for us.Likewise, we have a duty to leave some for the coming generation.The challenge is how to balance both inter- and intra-generational equity issues.The whole notion of citizenship is encapsulated around that idea.It is obvious; comrade Prime Minister, Namibia’s finite resources are currently being squandered by a small clique of people who have access to Government quotas, concessions, contracts and public money through the so-called black economic empowerment schemes.Most of these people get their concessions or quotas today and sell them the next day – maintaining briefcase companies, employing themselves and their girlfriends or boyfriends.The majority of our people have no clue where the fish, gold, copper or diamonds go, although they are constantly told the country is endowed with natural resources.There is, therefore, an urgent need to reconsider our policies regarding these critical areas of our economy.This is one area where I would strongly recommend for the setting up of robust SOEs to make sure that the fruits from these sectors go direct into State coffers and not to some shady individuals in and outside Namibia.At the heart of the issue is classic dilemma: Public Resources – Private Profits.How does a country like Namibia justify this scenario? You recently said: “It is totally unacceptable that someone should be riding on public resources.”So, please walk the talk, Cde Angula.Until this dilemma is resolved, our nascent democracy will remain a mere spectator democracy.Black Empowerment This is a blind mimicry by Africans.The concept is American and context specific.How do you operationalise it in a society where the majority is black? It was meant to provide a safety valve for a minority population that had been left out of the mainstream economy.It is true blacks were left out in colonial times.But a majority government now controls the instruments of power and commanding heights of the economy – the land, fish, forest, wildlife and mineral resources and the telecommunication and postal services.It’s
now up to Government to make sure that the country’s resources are used to improve the overall well-being of the population at large and not a few select fat cats, which BEE has succeeded in doing.Or should every black person set up a company, draw up a business plan and then approach some of the country’s cash cows i.e.GIPF, SSC, AgriBank or the Development Bank to get public funds under BEE? Is there another way where those not interested in business can still benefit from the country’s resources without having to carry a briefcase and wear sunglasses and a suit? It is a highly skewed system.Personally, I want to live in a developed country, not an under-developed one with a handful of millionaires and large-scale misery.Our policy-makers need to read Bentham and Mill’s classic statement on utilitarianism.Inquiries And Institutions Namibians have a propensity for setting up institutions without having defined the problems, let alone the functions to be performed.Do you remember the Efficiency and Charter Unit, in the PM’s Office, or the Central Governance Agency? They seem to be on a long vacation, judging by what has been happening in the public and SOE sectors.The Central Governance Agency, to be sure, was stillborn and must be buried.The Efficiency Unit needs pumping up.As for the Commissions, most of the cases they are set up to address are simply criminal in nature and must be dealt with under the country’s criminal system – the courts.They are time consuming, costly, the results hardly made public, let alone the recommendations being implemented.Good public policies minimise problems and thus preclude the need for creating more agencies.There was, for example, no need to bring in more diamond companies i.e.Lev Leviev Diamonds and others.What was needed was a change in the rules, regulations and policies that govern the mining sector, not to bring in more exploiters (sorry, they are called investors in Africa – even saviours by some myopic Africans).There is also absolutely no need to set up these many electricity providers (ironically nicknamed REDs) in a country whose population is equivalent to that of a medium-sized city elsewhere in the world.I also have a strong reservation about the usefulness of the envisaged anti-corruption commission.We need the law, but not the agency – it’s going to be another white elephant, just like the Central Governance Agency.Prices and Standard of Living There is a ‘mafia-like’ system operating in Namibia, orchestrated by the merchants of capital and industry and supported by Government.Nothing is cheap in Namibia.We are told Namibia is one of the leading fish- and beef-producing countries in the world, yet these products are beyond the reach of many Namibians.Farms, urban land, houses and cars are wild dreams for many of our people.And so are water and electricity.Compare prices of the same items in SA and you get the picture – i.e.a house in Cape Town and in Windhoek! And that’s why Namibian business people keep on complaining about cheap products from SA, calling for Government protection.And the Government usually provides it because some BEE characters now have stakes in some of the private companies.There is a ban on the importation of second-hand cars from Asia, which are much cheaper and in better condition than the local ones.Government supports a monopoly in the telecommunication sector, especially in the cell-phone division with MTC, with its poor services and exorbitant prices, being protected like a suckling baby or holy cow.These issues, of course, don’t affect the ‘Wabenzis’ because most of them have monthly car, housing and entertainment allowances, running into thousands of dollars, from the State coffers.It’s strange that Government has opened up the mining and fishing sectors to all sorts of shady characters but decided to maintain a crippling monopoly in the telecommunication industry.It should be the other way round.We must understand that capitalism is not just an economic system but also a psychological disease – the lowest human desire to accumulate as much as possible at the exclusion of others.A caring government must be aware of that.Ministry of Foreign Affairs This is Namibia’s window to the world and must therefore reflect the plurality and cultural richness of our society and also engage the right people for the job.Some of the people posted abroad to our missions are not up to scratch.Some have no understanding of diplomacy or how the international system is constituted and functions.Some end up bored and shying away from meeting other Namibians, let alone foreigners.Some simply see this as another opportunity for shopping and that’s why the country where one is posted matters.This is bound to happen in a system that doesn’t have any set criteria for recruiting people to the Foreign Service.Thus you have people trained as nurses, teachers, plumbers, computer technicians turned into overnight diplomats with disastrous results.This, in turn, is tied to ongoing cronyism and the ‘village-isation’ of our politics.A serious overhaul of this Ministry is long overdue – prune the deadwood.This is not to distract from those doing a great job, though.Tribalism And National (Dis)Unity A motion in the NA on this issue was recently quashed by a majority vote.So, not much discussion saw the light of day on this relevant issue.In a subsequent interview, the Speaker of the House, Theo-Ben Gurirab, a seasoned politician and an intellectual in his own right, couldn’t see the link between tribalism and the lack of national unity.For in the same interview, while he expressed satisfaction that the motion was defeated, he also bemoaned the lack of national unity and identity after 15 years of independence.We need to maintain a high level of alert on the tribal/ethnic front.Because tribalism creeps in through the way we make appointments to public offices, offer scholarships to students, grant quotas, concessions and contracts to individuals.Tribalism is partly perception and partly real.We can work towards eliminating the perception part of it by doing things above board.And to curb the real one, there is need to educate and sensitise those who are currently making a living through ethnic/tribal connections that such a system is self-defeating and disastrous for the nation as whole in the long run.The Land Issue This is one issue that enjoys a national consensus.Unfortunately, the consensus is based on faulty assumptions and thus wrong solutions.There is something called land reform in Namibia.This term is vacuous and meaningless in our context; although politicians, agricultural unions (both white and black), academics and the public use it approvingly.Last year, I wrote in a Namibia Economist article that: … “Contrary to the prevailing popular, official and academic claims that a process of land reform is taking place in Namibia, albeit at a slow pace, in fact the opposite is true.A process of land (re) distribution can take place without bringing about any fundamental reform and restructuring of the colonial and capitalist structures that were created and consolidated over a century of colonial rule.In fact, the Government is busy entrenching, consolidating and formalising the existing land tenure regimes because it has essentially accepted, as given, the historical foundations (capitalism and colonialism) upon which they have been constructed over more than one hundred years of colonial plunder.We have already travelled too far in the wrong direction and I don’t see any possibility of changing course.Unless the ruling elite is ready to commit ‘a class suicide’.The compass, however, is tilting towards a violent agrarian revolt in the future.”In conclusion, these ten points are not exhaustive, nor have they been treated exhaustively for lack of space.But they capture some of the most contentious and contested issues facing our society today, and I’m putting them forward as an urgent agenda for a national debate/dialogue of which you, Prime Minister, must be the referee, because you are a leading proponent of a knowledge-based economy and society.*Alexactus T.Kaure is a Namibia
n freelance writer and social critic currently based in West Africa.But President Pohamba has so far been making very good, broad and bold statements on a number of issues, indicating where he wants the country to go.And most, if not all, Namibians are supportive of that – including some of us who were initially sceptical about his vision.The onus is now on the Prime Minister’s Office to make sure that the President’s pronouncements are turned into achievable and verifiable programmes and projects.Your Office, Prime Minister, represents the President on the ground and oversees the daily functioning of other ministries to achieve proper co-ordination and action.I’m engaging you not only because you occupy that central role in Government but also as an advocate of a knowledge-based economy and society.Below are some issues that need some careful scrutiny, reappraisal and directional change: Policy-Making There is a clear need to streamline and harmonise Government’s policy-making processes.Substantive policies and decisions, of a cross-cutting nature, from other ministries and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) must go through the Prime Minister’s Office for careful analysis and evaluation by the Directorate of Policy Analysis in your Office (and this needs to be staffed with some of Namibia sharpest minds) to make sure that they don’t contradict each other or the President’s own vision.One humorous example along these lines occurred, in the mid-90s, when two ministries arrived in West Caprivi: one wanted to set up a community camp-site to attract tourists and thus generate revenue for the neglected San community and the other came with bulldozers to clear the same area to build a maximum-security prison for Namibia’s ever-expanding criminal population.This is just one small example but there are other more substantive instances where sometimes policies are at odds with one another.This shouldn’t be construed as deepening centralisation but rather to make sure that we are all on the same page.Parastatals These have become a bane and they never stop to bemuse, amuse and make headlines.And it is the same whether they are money-spinners or spenders.They all suffer from some aspects of corruption, theft, nepotism, cronyism and unrealistic salary and benefits packages.The so-called money-spinners such as NamPower, NamWater, Telecom, basically monopolies, have developed an appetite for charging exorbitant fees to finance the Gucci lifestyles of their managers and directors.They do this by going back to the consumers every now and then with an increase in fees.Most of our people are thus priced out of the system.Come to think of it, how does one start a small-scale enterprise if water, electricity and communications are hardly affordable? Here is what needed to be done: get rid of those non-essential, loss-making SOEs, revisit the salary structures of all SOEs and bring them on par with the rest of the Civil Service.For example, all CEOs must get the same salaries and benefits as the Permanent Secretaries and then work the rest of the salary structure accordingly.Please stop the haemorrhage – you have the power to.The old argument that it was necessary to pay these CEOs high salaries in order to retain them no longer holds.For even the private sector is feeling the squeeze because it cannot keep up with the high salaries in the public sector (refer to recent statements by Harold Pupkewitz).Secondly, some of the people in the SOEs are simply not employable in the private sector, and thirdly, the private sector in Namibia cannot absorb this many people because it is simply too small.Boards of directors on SOEs must be appointed strictly on merit and no one should serve on more than two boards – and they must be made to understand that serving on a board is not like having a second or third job and must therefore get a token sitting fee on ‘a take-it-or-leave-it’ basis.I would strongly urge the Prime Minister to seriously consider making use of volunteer managers and directors for SOEs.Big organisations such as the UN system widely make use of this.You would be surprised at the results.Agriculture We are slowly killing this sector, either through sheer neglect or lack of understanding of the link between agriculture and industrial development.There is now an urgent need to redefine the role and functions of AgriBank.So far, AgriBank has been nothing other than a financing club for the well-to-do in Namibian society – buying farms at highly inflated prices.The real farmers are the thousands of folks all over rural Namibia who eke out a living from the land.These are the people that AgriBank should concentrate on.We have to revisit water provision and pricing in rural Namibia.Provide the necessary incentives and subsidies to farmers.Let’s encourage them to produce more and leave the rest to them.And that’s why we need to reconsider the so-called Green Scheme – where the Government now becomes one big farmer.This is a lousy excuse to divert attention away from the real agricultural needs of farmers and the country.Besides another SOE that would be created to oversee the Green Scheme and an Irrigation Training Centre to be established, Government will unnecessarily crowd out the real farmers in the process.And instead of setting up a separate centre just to train farmers on irrigation; maybe the funds could be channelled through Unam, the Polytechnic or the Ministry of Agriculture’s extension services and still achieve the same objectives.Public Resources Philosophically and constitutionally, all natural resources in Namibia belong to its citizens – past, present and future, and must benefit all in society.The first generation used some and left the rest for us.Likewise, we have a duty to leave some for the coming generation.The challenge is how to balance both inter- and intra-generational equity issues.The whole notion of citizenship is encapsulated around that idea.It is obvious; comrade Prime Minister, Namibia’s finite resources are currently being squandered by a small clique of people who have access to Government quotas, concessions, contracts and public money through the so-called black economic empowerment schemes.Most of these people get their concessions or quotas today and sell them the next day – maintaining briefcase companies, employing themselves and their girlfriends or boyfriends.The majority of our people have no clue where the fish, gold, copper or diamonds go, although they are constantly told the country is endowed with natural resources.There is, therefore, an urgent need to reconsider our policies regarding these critical areas of our economy.This is one area where I would strongly recommend for the setting up of robust SOEs to make sure that the fruits from these sectors go direct into State coffers and not to some shady individuals in and outside Namibia.At the heart of the issue is classic dilemma: Public Resources – Private Profits.How does a country like Namibia justify this scenario? You recently said: “It is totally unacceptable that someone should be riding on public resources.”So, please walk the talk, Cde Angula.Until this dilemma is resolved, our nascent democracy will remain a mere spectator democracy.Black Empowerment This is a blind mimicry by Africans.The concept is American and context specific.How do you operationalise it in a society where the majority is black? It was meant to provide a safety valve for a minority population that had been left out of the mainstream economy.It is true blacks were left out in colonial times.But a majority government now controls the instruments of power and commanding heights of the economy – the land, fish, forest, wildlife and mineral resources and the telecommunication and postal services.It’s now up to Government to make sure that the country’s resources are used to improve the overall well-being of the population at large and not a few select fat cats, which BEE has succeeded in doing.Or should every black person set up a company, draw up a business plan and then approach some of the country’s cash cows i.e.GIPF, SSC, AgriBank or the Development Bank to get public funds under
BEE? Is there another way where those not interested in business can still benefit from the country’s resources without having to carry a briefcase and wear sunglasses and a suit? It is a highly skewed system.Personally, I want to live in a developed country, not an under-developed one with a handful of millionaires and large-scale misery.Our policy-makers need to read Bentham and Mill’s classic statement on utilitarianism. Inquiries And Institutions Namibians have a propensity for setting up institutions without having defined the problems, let alone the functions to be performed.Do you remember the Efficiency and Charter Unit, in the PM’s Office, or the Central Governance Agency? They seem to be on a long vacation, judging by what has been happening in the public and SOE sectors.The Central Governance Agency, to be sure, was stillborn and must be buried.The Efficiency Unit needs pumping up.As for the Commissions, most of the cases they are set up to address are simply criminal in nature and must be dealt with under the country’s criminal system – the courts.They are time consuming, costly, the results hardly made public, let alone the recommendations being implemented.Good public policies minimise problems and thus preclude the need for creating more agencies.There was, for example, no need to bring in more diamond companies i.e.Lev Leviev Diamonds and others.What was needed was a change in the rules, regulations and policies that govern the mining sector, not to bring in more exploiters (sorry, they are called investors in Africa – even saviours by some myopic Africans).There is also absolutely no need to set up these many electricity providers (ironically nicknamed REDs) in a country whose population is equivalent to that of a medium-sized city elsewhere in the world.I also have a strong reservation about the usefulness of the envisaged anti-corruption commission.We need the law, but not the agency – it’s going to be another white elephant, just like the Central Governance Agency. Prices and Standard of Living There is a ‘mafia-like’ system operating in Namibia, orchestrated by the merchants of capital and industry and supported by Government.Nothing is cheap in Namibia.We are told Namibia is one of the leading fish- and beef-producing countries in the world, yet these products are beyond the reach of many Namibians.Farms, urban land, houses and cars are wild dreams for many of our people.And so are water and electricity.Compare prices of the same items in SA and you get the picture – i.e.a house in Cape Town and in Windhoek! And that’s why Namibian business people keep on complaining about cheap products from SA, calling for Government protection.And the Government usually provides it because some BEE characters now have stakes in some of the private companies.There is a ban on the importation of second-hand cars from Asia, which are much cheaper and in better condition than the local ones.Government supports a monopoly in the telecommunication sector, especially in the cell-phone division with MTC, with its poor services and exorbitant prices, being protected like a suckling baby or holy cow.These issues, of course, don’t affect the ‘Wabenzis’ because most of them have monthly car, housing and entertainment allowances, running into thousands of dollars, from the State coffers.It’s strange that Government has opened up the mining and fishing sectors to all sorts of shady characters but decided to maintain a crippling monopoly in the telecommunication industry.It should be the other way round.We must understand that capitalism is not just an economic system but also a psychological disease – the lowest human desire to accumulate as much as possible at the exclusion of others.A caring government must be aware of that. Ministry of Foreign Affairs This is Namibia’s window to the world and must therefore reflect the plurality and cultural richness of our society and also engage the right people for the job.Some of the people posted abroad to our missions are not up to scratch.Some have no understanding of diplomacy or how the international system is constituted and functions.Some end up bored and shying away from meeting other Namibians, let alone foreigners.Some simply see this as another opportunity for shopping and that’s why the country where one is posted matters.This is bound to happen in a system that doesn’t have any set criteria for recruiting people to the Foreign Service.Thus you have people trained as nurses, teachers, plumbers, computer technicians turned into overnight diplomats with disastrous results.This, in turn, is tied to ongoing cronyism and the ‘village-isation’ of our politics.A serious overhaul of this Ministry is long overdue – prune the deadwood.This is not to distract from those doing a great job, though. Tribalism And National (Dis)Unity A motion in the NA on this issue was recently quashed by a majority vote.So, not much discussion saw the light of day on this relevant issue.In a subsequent interview, the Speaker of the House, Theo-Ben Gurirab, a seasoned politician and an intellectual in his own right, couldn’t see the link between tribalism and the lack of national unity.For in the same interview, while he expressed satisfaction that the motion was defeated, he also bemoaned the lack of national unity and identity after 15 years of independence.We need to maintain a high level of alert on the tribal/ethnic front.Because tribalism creeps in through the way we make appointments to public offices, offer scholarships to students, grant quotas, concessions and contracts to individuals.Tribalism is partly perception and partly real.We can work towards eliminating the perception part of it by doing things above board.And to curb the real one, there is need to educate and sensitise those who are currently making a living through ethnic/tribal connections that such a system is self-defeating and disastrous for the nation as whole in the long run.The Land Issue This is one issue that enjoys a national consensus.Unfortunately, the consensus is based on faulty assumptions and thus wrong solutions.There is something called land reform in Namibia.This term is vacuous and meaningless in our context; although politicians, agricultural unions (both white and black), academics and the public use it approvingly.Last year, I wrote in a Namibia Economist article that: … “Contrary to the prevailing popular, official and academic claims that a process of land reform is taking place in Namibia, albeit at a slow pace, in fact the opposite is true.A process of land (re) distribution can take place without bringing about any fundamental reform and restructuring of the colonial and capitalist structures that were created and consolidated over a century of colonial rule.In fact, the Government is busy entrenching, consolidating and formalising the existing land tenure regimes because it has essentially accepted, as given, the historical foundations (capitalism and colonialism) upon which they have been constructed over more than one hundred years of colonial plunder.We have already travelled too far in the wrong direction and I don’t see any possibility of changing course.Unless the ruling elite is ready to commit ‘a class suicide’.The compass, however, is tilting towards a violent agrarian revolt in the future.”In conclusion, these ten points are not exhaustive, nor have they been treated exhaustively for lack of space.But they capture some of the most contentious and contested issues facing our society today, and I’m putting them forward as an urgent agenda for a national debate/dialogue of which you, Prime Minister, must be the referee, because you are a leading proponent of a knowledge-based economy and society.*Alexactus T.Kaure is a Namibian freelance writer and social critic currently based in West Africa.