Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
Windhoek-The Congress of Democrats (CoD) acting president Vaino Amuthenu yesterday expressed concern over the mismanagement of public resources at all government levels.
He said: “The auditor general has shown time and again that lack of accountability is systemic but, alas, without any response from the government.”
“It may be time that some officials are arraigned in the courts of our country for this continued malaise. The law needs to take its toll,” he said in his new year message.
He added that all organs of the state have continued to squander the limited public resources like a “drunk at a casino with no care in the world”.
“It is time that the word accountability has a real meaning in the managing of the waning public purse,” stated the politician.
He added that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) occupy the pinnacle in this lack of accountability as they continue to show disregard for the country’s tax laws and sound management of scarce public resources under their management.
Amuthenu says SOEs’ greatest expertise appears to be to stand cap in hand at the minister of finance’s door for yet another round of a couple of million dollars to waste recklessly and with impunity.
According to him, SOEs appear to be both “irresponsible” and careless as recently shown by the actions of the Meatco Board led by its chairperson Martha Namundjebo-Tilahun.
“Her board managed to slap the public recently with a N$3 million bill for patently reckless and incompetent actions. Should they not carry the can for this plainly stupid and reckless actions, at the expense of the public, we wonder!” he said.
“It may well be time for the minister of public enterprises to wake up from his slumber. He needs to have real powers to act instead of making cameo appearances long after the corpse has been removed from the crime scene,” he added.
He said CoD is also concerned about the “murky businesses” under the orbit of the Ministry of Defence whose goings-on appear to be shielded from parliamentary oversight under the guise their dealings cannot be put under parliamentary scrutiny because of “security” sensitivities.
“The growing businesses, including the many contracts for armaments, equipment and food now remain a closed book,” he said.
Furthermore, Amuthenu said CoD believes that Namibia has a bright future provided it has the right stewardship, and that is the vacuum it needs to fill at every foundation.
“Despite being buffeted by the vagaries of the international marketplace and the generally poor performance of resources-based economies globally, we believe that our economy ought to have and should perform better than in the recent past,” he said.