WINDHOEK – President Hage Geingob will today deliver his first State of the Nation address, as the last such address was delivered by his predecessor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, who on March 21 this year relinquished the country’s presidency.
Political and economic experts New Era spoke to yesterday ahead of the historic address varied, with Dr Andrew Niikondo expecting the new President to reflect on the transformation of power from his predecessor to himself as a smooth transition. Over the weekend, Pohamba also relinquished his Swapo Party presidency to Geingob, who was until then the Swapo vice president.
“It is very rare in Africa that our people exchange power. It’s one of our major achievements in our democratic system or processes. This is one of the areas the President has to analyse,” Niikondo said.
Further, he maintained Geingob has to take stock on government performance during the last term of former president Pohamba, in which he was Prime Minister.
In particular, he said achievements such as free education, initiated for the first time in Namibia, as well as national programmes such as mass housing scheme meant to address the housing backlog, particularly for low income groups, will also be addressed.
“He is also going to tackle poverty reduction as well as unemployment which was said to have slightly decreased. These are some of the things I think he will focus on,” he noted. Meanwhile, University of Namibia (Unam) lecturer, Dr Hoze Riruako, said Geingob would want to cast his own vision.
“This is a person who promised to revamp the system through efficiency, transparency and accountability.
“He will focus on service delivery as he started already, for example, by banning foreign trips of ministers to rather focus on addressing real issues affecting the people in the country,” he said.
Riruako also expects Geingob to tackle issues of land, poverty reduction and food security.
Meanwhile, the managing director of Lexus Securities, Andrew Jansen, feels Geingob will address tackling poverty eradication and not just elevation, service delivery from both government and parastatals as well as the performance of government officials at all levels.
“I think he will spend time telling us about how he sees the near future for us as Namibians, which will include a positive outlook on an economy that is growing at satisfactory levels and quite a bit higher than some of our neighbours and trading partners,” commented Jansen.
Lexus is a diversified financial services company, owning private companies such as Simonis Storm Securities (SSS), Hugo Hahn, Arysteq Financial Services and a minority stake in Specialist Administration Services.