Our politics have hit a new era. An era where flamboyantly-dressed politicians stand in front of poor people’s shacks, have photos taken and splash such imagery of supposed authentic search for answers from the poor on social networks.
In the past we saw SPYL activists squatting in the ghettos with the poor, and this week it was DTA president McHenry Venaani who stole the show in that regard.
When shacks of the poor were being bulldozed by the Windhoek municipality, no politician of notable standing arrived in Katutura to stand by the poor in their hour of isolation.
Shacks have become commonplace in our urban areas. They are a poignant symbol of the widening gap between the urban poor and the bourgeois who possess almost everything.
Politicians are part of the elite because they have a raft of rock-star perks and are usually treated like royalty.
But for those that live in shacks, even having access to a decent toilet and accessibility to clean water is a recurring challenge.
In most cases there are no taps in these settlements and when they are available, a single tap has to provide water for several families.
Residents of these tiny, candle-lit iron sheet huts seem condemned to squalor and endure cramped, unhygienic conditions.
In winter the occupants of these abominable structures are susceptible to infernos that often engulf these rudimentary dwellings.
These destitute citizens are the most economically deprived members of our society and the most backward when it comes to quality education.
We cannot prosper economically as a nation if such a big segment of our nation lives hand-to-mouth in squalid, overcrowded conditions.
Save for the odd civil servant the typical residents of these poverty-stricken settlements are labourers, dumpsite scavengers, and vegetable and kapana sellers.
Shack dwellers are in an endless state of anxiety because of the constant fear they could be evicted and have their huts demolished by ‘developers’ or by the local authorities.
Women and kids among this downtrodden lot are worse off in their exposure to the daily brutalities of ghetto life. Shacks are a mirror reflection of our social economic inequalities although there have been serious policy interventions to remedy this endemic inequality by our government.
However, the question that often comes to mind is; are we as a nation, and particularly the politicians, genuinely and pragmatically addressing the poor’s plight? Or do we use their plight to showboat and score cheap political points?
Politicians should not only be interested in the plight of shack dwellers when it is election time – they should also speak out at other times when these people are evicted and dumped onto the streets. And politicians should as well use their political clout to address the basic needs of the destitute such as water and housing.
However, it appears there is very little provision in the multi-billion-dollar mass housing scheme to roll back these shacks. Because we are told there is a monthly income threshold of N$5 000 for a beneficiary to qualify for a house under the scheme.
This is above the monthly income of a vegetable or kapana vendor, or a labourer or scratch-card street dealer that lives in a shack. We wonder whether this policy oversight will not drive another wedge between the haves and the have-nots.
While no one doubts the multiplicity of benefits such as cheaper houses for those that did not possess a house, we could also have used this opportunity to make provision for social housing for the needy.
In actual fact, the people that live in shacks are equally in need of decent brick houses just like any other Namibian citizen.