Dear Editor
I appreciate the efforts made by the Ongwediva Town Council to attract much-needed investment to the town. For instance, the Town Council formulated a Strategic Plan (2002-2007), its roadmap to the future, which spells out their vision of the town. That is a great achievement. Some of the envisioned projects, such as the private hospital, are already in place.
Although I must hasten to say that projects like this one were talked about long before the plan in question came into being. However, I must give credit where it is due. Congratulations!
However, based on my analysis of the town’s current strategic plan there are certain shortcomings that need rectifying and I am not going to mince my words about it.
To begin with, there is a need to shift the focus of the plan. The future plan, which will hopefully come out this year, must focus on people as the ultimate beneficiaries of whatever developmental activities the council is going to embark upon. This will require the council to ask itself why it exists before asking about where it wants Ongwediva to be 20 years from now.
Secondly, community engagement is very important. Had the Ongwediva Town Council used the brainpower residing in the town more, I am sure they would have come up with a far better product. They should do what some institutions do – invite the community to actively participate in the visioning exercise, planning and implementation processes. This ensures ownership and commitment. In addition, it enriches the outcome because of the diversity in perspectives and expertise that the different participants bring.
That the community was not sufficiently involved in the formulation of the Ongwediva Strategic Plan is partly borne out by the chief executive officer’s words when he says, “It is therefore imperative that all of us in the council have to familiarise ourselves with the content of this great document. It is also important that our clients should be oriented towards the new vision and mission of the town, since this document does not exist in a vacuum,” whatever that means.
Thirdly, the document is peppered with vague and incomprehensible generalisations. I suspect that some of the words were lifted from other documents and incorporated without much thought, as the following quotation demonstrates: “We are geared not only to attract investment but also to streamline the operational machinery for the implementation of a conducive climate for investment.”
There seems to be a shortage of creativity in the document, partly because the emergent knowledge economy offers a myriad of opportunities that Ongwediva could exploit, especially given the fact that there is a great concentration of academics in the town, instead of servicing “over 500” plots for traditional industrial development.
Finally, a serious investor would want to see an in-depth analysis of the present economic environment of the town. I failed to spot it in the document. I am no economist, but you do not need to be a rocket scientist to detect some of the document’s deficiencies. Drawing from my background in educational management, I think that a proper analysis of the economic environment of the town would have revealed more useful information upon which the current plan could have been based. Also, we want to see a more serious and coherent document containing priorities and which is available to the community for scrutiny and input.
To conclude, our town councils must heed the President’s remarks when he opened Parliament this year saying, “We should be willing to listen to the views of our citizens. In so doing we will establish trust and promote all of our citizens in the process of development.”
Metusalem Nakale
Ongwediva