Munyungano R. Musisanyani
On Friday, 1 April 2022, The Namibian newspaper reported, government through the Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare spent N$6.3 billion on social assistance in the 2020/21 financial year. More so, when tabling the national budget for the 2019/2020 fiscal year in March 2019, the then minister of finance, Calle Schlettwein, announced that the country would spend about 50% of its budget on social welfare programmes.
Concretely, for the past three decades, a moiety of the Namibian budget has been allocated for social expenditure, which includes health, education and welfare services, indicating that Namibia could be considered a welfare state with high public spending though Namibia can as well be classified as a developmental state. These ‘social gestures’ by the Namibian government under the provisions of the Namibian Constitution inculcate the ideas and philosophy of Richard Morris Titmuss, who was a British social researcher and teacher.
Titmuss, who was a professor of social administration at the London School of Economics from 1951 to 1973, had a profound mistrust of the market and placed powerful emphasis in his writing on the use of the state to redistribute resources in favour of equality. The State, he argued, should play a strongly integrative role, in particular compensating for the adverse effects of social and economic change (Hardley & Hatch, 1981).
Accordingly, Wilensky (1975:5) described the essence of the welfare state as “government-protected minimum standards of income, nutrition, health, housing and education, assured to every citizen as a political right, not charity”. Here, welfare is first and foremost a democratic state that in addition to civil and political rights that guarantees social protection as a right attached to citizenship. More so welfare states provide citizens with free education and protect them against extreme poverty (Caramani, 2011).
The constitutional mandate
Namibia has one of the most comprehensive social protection systems in Africa (Schade, La and Pick, 2019). Promotion of social welfare of the people is enshrined in Chapter 11, Article 95 of the Namibian Constitution. Article 95 of the Namibian Constitution talks about the promotion of the welfare of the people of Namibia, that the State shall actively promote and maintain the welfare of Namibians.
The Constitution requires the government to promote and maintain the welfare of the people by enacting of legislation to ensure equal opportunities for men and women, access by all to health and education, reasonable access to public facilities and services, a pension to senior citizens, and just and affordable benefits to the unemployed, the incapacitated, the indigent, and the disadvantaged with due regard to the resources of the State (The Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, 1990).
The dissonant reality
Namibia is an upper middle-income country with a population of 2.5 million people. Considering its abundant mineral resources deposits such as diamonds, copper, zinc and the marine resources etc., which can be economically and socially utilised to uplift the living standards of its populace through spending mineral and marine revenue on creation of economic wealth and social benefits, Namibia remains with one of the highest inequalities in the world, ranked the second most unequal country in the world after South Africa, with a gini co-efficiency index of 0.567. In countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Rwanda, the two governments have used the country’s natural wonders such as crude oil and tantalum to ignite and enhance economic growth and social development. In Namibia, where income inequality exists, social welfare initiatives have played an important role in supporting households to attain some minimum standard of living. Social welfare programmes such as the child grant, old age grant, disability grant, maintenance grant, social security, food support programmes, provision of housing and shelter initiatives, pension funds, and Namibia’s labour market activation schemes have assisted in achieving human developmental goals including improved education and health outcomes while also reducing poverty levels. Despite all of this, 1.6 million Namibians live in poverty right now (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 2022).
Worryingly, the global economic meltdown due to low commodity prices, advance of Covid-19, the impact of climate change, economic and social woes in South Africa and the war in Ukraine has affected Namibia’s economic growth thus igniting high cost of living, high food prices, hence sending many Namibians into extreme poverty!
The unanswered questions
It is indisputable to highlight the fact that Namibia under Swapo party government has done so well on social welfare by implementing various social welfare programmes to help the vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our communities but one wonders why do we still have more people living in poverty and unfavourable living conditions. In Windhoek alone, about 500 000 Namibians live in informal settlements. Windhoek’s informal settlements are home to poor health care facilities, impoverished sewage system, soaring crime, pollution, overcrowding, landlessness and poor water supply. What is our government doing with the resources of this great nation if these social problems persist? Why do we have so super rich individuals and super poor individuals in a country regarded as one of the richest in Africa and with a national population of 2.5 million people? What is the government doing about the level of youth unemployment, poverty; uneven distribution of wealth and the ever ballooning monster of inequality? Many people are flocking to urban centres in search of better economic activities and decent living conditions, what is the government doing to contain the ever-growing rural-urban migration? Is the decentralisation policy still in existence? Right now, our nation survives by importing huge quantities of food from other countries, in fact Namibia is an economic stepchild of other nations, surviving by begging for food and other essential economic materials. What will happen to us if we wake up one day only to learn that other countries have closed their borders on food imports thus prioritising their own citizens?
The way forward
Namibia should live by the principles of sovereignty, not by principles of ‘begging’. Namibia has come of age, it should now live by the principles of a sovereign republic rather than a banana republic.
Living by the principles of sovereignty entails that Namibia should have the capacity to produce and process its food commodities thus ensuring food security and food sovereignty, Namibia should be in a position to curb unemployment through aggressive government interventions by setting up industrial and manufacturing hubs and heavily promoting foreign direct investments on our terms and conditions. Namibia should be in a position to address landlessness, abject poverty, poor sanitation, poor water supply, inequality and poor health care system by using State resources as per the Constitution. Equally important, Article 95 is not yet fully implemented as just and affordable benefits to the unemployed are yet to be realised.
The unemployed especially the youth are the most hopeless citizens of this nation, this has ignited in them evil spirits which has pushed them in committing gruesome crimes thus threatening public order! One understands the global economic meltdown afflicting the whole world right now and Namibia is not an island but our government should aggressively strive for poverty reduction, equality, economic growth and equal distribution of state resources. It is very disturbing to note that, Namibia as a nation is striving in grand corruption, tribalism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, nepotism, identity politics vis-à-vis tribal politics and the ever-rising colossus kleptocracy in our country.
*Munyungano Reagan Musisanyani is a liberalist and a food security activist. He holds a B.A (Hons) Political Science and Sociology from the University of Namibia.