By Frederick Philander
WINDHOEK
A pilot project within the next year, in an unspecified area of the country, is one of the most enterprising undertakings of the Basic Income Grant Coalition (BIG).
BIG has announced efforts to intensify its internationally acclaimed plans of action to promote employment and decent work for all in the country.
This was announced yesterday during a press conference by the chairman of BIG, Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta.
He was speaking at the launch of a 28-page booklet titled, Promoting employment and decent work for all-Towards a good practice model in Namibia.
“The BIG Coalition is now raising funds for the introduction of it as a pilot in one specific area in Namibia for a limited period of time, but keeping the principles of universality, cash-based entitlement, providing some form of income and build on redistributive justice,” Bishop Kameeta said, refusing to reveal the selected area in which the pilot project will be started.
Hubert Jauch, a member of the committee, quickly defended the coalition’s stance with regard to keeping the town and/or area a secret expressing fear that such an announcement can cause a stampede and an influx into the specific area.
“If we announce the area today, it would falsify the pilot project. Suffice it to say, presently scientific assessments and monitoring of the people living in the specific area are underway. In fact, we are ready to sign up people in the area, which fits into our motto of no more talk, but do it, be it on a limited scale,” Jauch said.
Both he and the Bishop were only prepared to say that the identified pilot project sphere is not a big town with a small population, but refused to divulge the region.
“There are many church congregations eager to financially contribute towards the pilot project, which will soon be announced. By the look of things, we will be able to raise enough funding without approaching governments, thanks to the willingness of congregations. We also want to bring about a paradigm shift by contributing individually towards the BIG budget,” said Kameeta, who also expressed the hope that the country’s business sector will support his organization’s efforts. According to Kameeta, contributions will be voluntary to help the poor and destitute in the country.
“Unfortunately, we do not have a culture of sharing, a situation that causes many social problems such as the crime rate in the country. Supporting BIG will be proof that the nation cares and is willing to share,” the respected churchman said. According to Jauch, the pilot project will be a groundbreaking event for Namibia in the world context.
“Namibia will be globally respected and the government will get full credit for it once the BIG is operative. Namibia will undoubtedly through BIG send a positive sign to the world,” Jauch said. At the same occasion, a booklet was launched as part of the plans of the coalition.
“The aim of the booklet is to supply a readable and user-friendly basis for an informed debate to the Namibian society because decent employment is a matter of survival for the people of the country. As a result of the huge income disparities, about 2/3 of the Namibian people live below the poverty line, despite the fact that Namibia has been classified as a middle-income country,” Kameeta said.
According to the churchman, having a job is a question of “to be or not to be” in Namibia as there are very few safety nets and virtually no possibilities of making a decent living outside the formal sector.
“Section one of the booklet deals with the context in which employment and decent work have to be created. Our aim is to look beyond the statistics at real people and fates behind the figures. For me, this is the basis from where to start the debate. It has become abundantly clear that the just cause of employment and decent work for all is not a question of trying to change the behaviour of people, who are held responsible for their own misery,” he said.
Kameeta urged the government to be aware of its role as a peoples’ government, which must not implicitly or explicitly blame the people, but be an agent and an ambassador of change against current destructive powers.
The second part of the book deals with an honest assessment of the current strategies to boost employment.
“We comment for instance on the labour-based road programmes in the country, for their competitiveness. However, one honestly needs to acknowledge that public programmes due to their limitations and affordability, are far from pointing a way for a turnaround strategy.
Furthermore, we need to accept that it is the objective of the private sector in a market economy to generate profits. The hope that the private sector would become a large-scale job creator with substantial impact on unemployment has not been fulfilled,” Bishop Kameeta charged. He said that it has become clear that economic growth and “sound” macro-economic indicators do not by themselves translate into sustained benefits for the majority of the population.
“The third section of the book looks at alternatives, namely workfare and employment guarantee schemes as well as conditional cash transfers. While these elements yield interesting results, they suffer from high administrative costs as well as possible corruption,” Kameeta, who is confident that decent work and employment can be created on a large scale in the country, said.
“The BIG would curb abject mass poverty and free people from the destructive circle of the survival economy by giving them income security. It would also redistribute wealth to the majority of the people where it is most effective to foster both investment and demand. A BIG forms a crucial platform for other important interventions by a developmental state to be effective,” he concluded.