By Josephat Sinvula The issue of utilizing local consultants for development is a subject that can be likened to a rhinoceros, which looks different depending on where the observer is standing and what portion of its anatomy one is concentrating on. Each perspective has some particular insights and each is only a part of the whole. Lately, local consultants have complained of neglect and accused senior officials in Ministries/Offices/Agencies, State-Owned Enterprises and the Private Sector of showing continued preference for foreign consultants when awarding contracts in the areas of research, consultancy, advisory services and other professions. Some local consultants have equally accused some senior officials in these institutions, for instance, of inertia and complacency when it comes to allowing them to take up some of the jobs previously held by foreign professionals. The questions to pose here are: Are these accusations true? If they are true, why should there be continued preference for foreign consultants? Are the local consultants doing a bad job? Are the foreign consultants doing an excellent job all the time? What are the overspill effects of a continued dependency on foreign consultants? There is no doubt that at independence, in 1990, Namibia was critically short of trained skilled human capital. To redress this anomaly, the educational sector was deliberately given a considerable share of the national budget as evidenced by the enormous increases in expenditure in education and training during the past 17 years. The government also provided all sections of the Namibian community with equal opportunities of access to education. The policy of government with regard to the development of education and training should be expanded and directed towards the production of skilled human capital needed to take over from the foreign consultants and to bring about the desired economic growth. One major factor that favours the utilization of foreign consultants is external technical assistance from abroad. The rationale advanced is that due to Namibia’s shortage of indigenous qualified and experienced personnel, the country needs to receive technical assistance in the form of foreign consultants to fill advisory posts in government – especially in strategic sectors such as regional and local government’s decentralization sector, education, health; and to conduct research studies, offer consultancy and manage foreign-aided projects. Regrettably, technical assistance is increasingly coming in the form of packages and strings. Donor agencies insist that packages be received as a whole regardless of whether some components in these packages are needed or not. Under the pretext that we need to get financial assistance, we do so even when there is enough skilled human capital to undertake the foreign-aided project. Closely related to technical assistance is the feeling among donor agencies in Europe and America that they should supervise their aid programmes. There are so many cases in plutocratic countries where governments are capable of and have been pocketing the aid meant for the poor masses. One disturbing trend in favour of the use of foreign consultants in Namibia pertains to the attitudes of some leaders in government and the business community. Some of these leaders prefer engaging foreign consultants in advisory services, research and some operational tasks. They have depended on them for a long time and do not see anything wrong with it. But what is most disturbing is the negative view that some leaders have. They think that the local consultants lack experience. That to give them serious jobs is risky. This view is definitely wrong. Some of the local consultants are more experienced and qualified than the imported foreign ones. Some of our leaders justify their engaging foreign consultants by saying that the local consultants are so few that it becomes unrealistic to overburden them with too many assignments. This does not hold water and is a fallacious justification. My experience as a professional in the areas of development economics, human resource management, political science and public administration is that local consultants go beyond a mere library search by doing a thorough and good quality job. On the other hand, some of the foreign consultants conduct a library research, produce reports, come to visit Namibia for a day or two and present their reports. It is therefore a “crime against Namibians” for some leaders who still hold the notion that anything foreign is much better than local. The other disturbing trend in Namibia is the behaviour of some of the foreign expatriates in employment who because they want to renew their contracts, they tend to frustrate the local professionals so that they resign or make blunders. When this happens they say that there are no local Namibians qualified to do the job or that those available are not yet ready to take over. In that way the contracts of these foreign professionals are renewed. The continued dependency on foreign consultants in Namibia leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the foreign consultants are below average – not really experts in their fields and fail to perform their duties well. During 2004-2006, I once attended several workshops organized by the Decentralization Directorate of the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development under the auspices of donor agencies focusing on decentralization support sectors where some of the research and consultancy reports were disappointedly poor, half baked and characterized by incorrect or outdated information, poor analysis resulting from an insufficient grasp of the factors operating on the local scene, biased recommendations and wrong-spelling of names of local persons and places. A local consultant will never allow himself/herself to make such silly mistakes. They can make other errors but not of this kind. Similarly, a lot of money in the form of much needed foreign exchange is spent on paying the foreign consultants. To make matters worse, most donor agencies normally prefer to hire their personnel from the expensive Western European and North American markets. I know of one instance where 95% of the budget is allocated to the maintenance of technical personnel and only 5% for the project. The other anomaly in this whole process is that foreign consultants in the donor-aided programmes are operating outside the government system. They are responsible to their parent agencies or embassies. The government has no power to control the funds or experts in the project. Even where the foreign consultant is incompetent nothing can be done. The only solution is to wait for the expiry of the contract so as to reject an application for the extension of it. Conversely, some advice we receive from some of the foreign consultants has proved to be unsuitable to the country’s needs and declared policies. There are so many abundant projects that Namibia has undertaken and continues to undertake on the advice of some foreign consultants only to find later that the advice was completely inappropriate. The country has paid dearly for this. For instance, the new tractors from the Far East bought for the ill-fated Pidico sugar irrigation project in Caprivi in the early 1990s which did not take into consideration the non-availability of spare parts and technicians, is a perfect example. If we accept the premise that growth should be from our own resources and that external assistance should only be used to supplement local resources and government efforts and that the employment of Namibian personnel in the implementation of foreign-aided projects should be encouraged, it makes economic sense to for us to wake up and use our own human resources for development. The responsibility of developing Namibia rests on our shoulders. We have the expertise to determine the type, pattern and direction of development. This has some advantages in that not only will our country save the much-needed foreign exchange but also local professionals will try to ensure that their advice is relevant to the development needs of the country. Already the NDP3 brainstorming sessions that ended in May 2007 and coordinated by the National Planning Commission Secretariat has proved to be a good example of the efforts of the local professionals. There should be no misdirection or underutilization of our local professionals. People should be given jobs they are trained for. For instance, it is folly to give a top post to a nurse to manage an SOE or an economist to spearhead the decentralization process! In other words, the right kind of jobs should be given to the right kind of people. When I advocate for the increased utilization of local professionals, I am mindful of the fact that there are some local professionals who may perform poorly. But empirical studies and experience from both the developed and developing countries indicate that utilization of local professionals will ensure support and success of the development efforts in Namibia. – Josephat Sinvula has a B.Sc. in Urban Studies & Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; MPA from Atlanta University, USA and is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science. He is currently employed as Head of Human Capital at Oshana Regional Council, Oshakati. The views expressed are his own.