Uncouth Nujoma Embodies Entitlement

The arrogance, entitlement and self-enrichment of Namibia’s political leaders need to be reined in very soon.

Labour minister Utoni Nujoma this week responded with “go to hell” to a journalist asking about the minister of agriculture writing off N$19 000 of Nujoma’s land tax obligations.

More civilised, but no less entitled, was the response of official opposition leader McHenry Venaani.

“It is not Venaani going and lobbying for tax exemption. It is an automatic category that when a person is black, you are exempt from paying full land tax. Why? Because of the social imbalances of the past,” Venaani said about not paying N$26 000.

The Namibian reported on a little publicised tax exemption perk for rich Namibians categorised as “previously disadvantaged” (mainly blacks and women), whose land tax payments can be waived because apartheid restricted them from owning farms.

Non-profit organisations can also benefit.

The Catholic Church received an exemption of more than N$600 000.

Land tax was introduced to discourage white farmowners from owning and hoarding huge tracts of land and thus impeding land reform programmes.

Independent Namibia’s lawmakers decided to grant exemptions on the pretext that the taxes might hurt the ownership of new black and women farming elites.

Hence Venaani’s argument: “There’s no law I transgressed by getting tax exempted.”

Venaani is stating a fact, but is missing a crucial point about entitlement and self-enrichment.

Tax exemption is part of the post-independence land reform system which has proven to be mainly a self-enrichment scheme for the ruling elites and their cronies.

Nujoma, who was land reform minister for five years, has been accused of perpetuating the allocation of farmland to friends, relatives and comrades.

Yet it’s people like Nujoma and other lawmakers who have set up schemes, like the affirmative action loan scheme, using taxpayer funds to subsidise their land ownership through Agribank.

So rigged is the land reform system that the law gives preference to former Namibian exiles, a euphemism for Swapo leaders and their favoured comrades, over needy landless citizens who often find themselves evicted as unwanted workers.

Simply put, land tax exemption is another perk for the privileged, most of whom have turned productive land into weekend farms for partying.

Apart from Nujoma and Venaani, the news report highlights some of the latest beneficiaries as Mike Kanjonokere and Claudia Venaani, former health minister Richard Kamwi (N$43 000), airports operator and media businessman Lazarus Jacobs (N$29 000), businessman and financial industry leader Vetumbuavi Mungunda (N$48 000), and Monika and Sonja Thieme of the super rich List family, who owned Namibia Breweries.

Other beneficiaries include Doris Wilke (N$71 000), Albertina Munomava and Lea Mupaine (N$65 000), Inge Hennes (N$61 000) and Aletta Muller (N$44 000).

In the larger scheme of their riches, the land tax exemption beneficiary would not struggle to pay.

So it’s all about milking the system.

The original purpose of the land tax was to support land reform activities.

It’s obvious that lawmakers and other beneficiaries care less about equitable land distribution; it’s all about themselves.

It is about being able to score maximum advantage from taxpayer money to increase their very own public subsidised wealth accumulation.

Their milking of taxpayer coffers is akin to a negative asymmetry of information in the sense that people with more knowledge and access tend to benefit most from a transaction. In this case those who desperately need upliftment are getting the short end of the stick.

Politicians, their business cronies, relatives and other hangers-on have greedily misappropriated public resources (S&Ts, presidential and ministerial perks, tax exemptions) for self-enrichment with blatant entitlement.

These schemes and perks need to be regularly reviewed, reduced and reversed as many have become entrenched as patronage and are not in the best interest of broader society.

Citizens, beware. Unless Namibians make their opinions clearly known, inequality and the skewed redistribution of resources will only get worse for the majority of our people.

Nujoma’s uncouth, entitled and self-enrichment attitude is a classic indication of leaders who have become used to taking voters for granted.