Tio Erastus Nakasole

To understand the economic principles of any mankind, it is necessary to understand by far the faith by which it’s determined. In the same way, one may ask a thorough nostalgia question “if God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not powerful. If God is not willing to prevent evil, he is not all good. If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?” 

Frankly, the Namibian government is so small but complicated by the fragility of democratic individuals in the system that refers to themselves as ‘’think tanks’’ while in reality are “opportunistic’’. The same people chastising the ruling government, because of the challenges, are the same people defending it through ballot papers.

A tourist who knows well the economic statistics of Namibia after a visit may also ask and say ‘’why a non-landlocked country with a population of 2.1 million, abundant resources, a N$174.8 billion GDP, with a high unemployment rate of 33.4%, grouped as an upper middle income class, having a skewed balance of payment of -9.6%, corruption stands at 57th out of 180?

Independence means being capable of effectively defending yourself, militarily, economically, socially and culturally. Namibia’s greatest challenge at independence consisted of finding the resources necessary for nation-building and meeting its enormous backlog of social investment on one hand while maintaining sustainable levels of public spending and debt required to maintain macroeconomic stability and attract foreign investment on the other. 

Yes, we like to parade the fact that Namibia possesses a larger percentage of the world’s natural resources. One may partially agree, but there is a need to acknowledge the fact that we have not found a way of extracting those resources for the benefit of the people. We have not found an administration that has a common goal of attaining economic freedom.

‘Don’t climb on an elephant to catch grasshopper’

Instead of the policymakers mingling and brain drain with successful economies of the same size such as Singapore, Luxembourg and UAE, they are busy making business with big giants on a large scale such as China. They said if you run a 100m don’t train with people that run marathon, as the rules are not the same and the timing of winning is different.

Those that consider themselves war veterans continue to sing the revolutionary song while clinging on to power, using the past to defend their future. Leading beyond your life expectancy is counterproductive. On the contrary, those that are at the periphery of the system and hopeless, the only weapon at their disposal is to criticize instead of spending more time on research and development programmes and bringing about change to the system. 

Numbers don’t lie

The Namibian constitution makes provision for a ‘’mixed economy’’ which legitimizes the role of both privately and publicly owned enterprises in the nation’s economy as well as public-private partnerships. Since 1990, the balance of trade in goods has been mostly negative since the last surplus was recorded in 2006. Ever since independence, there have been approximately 42 successful Foreign Direct Investments, however, this has been in sharp decline since 2015. 

The World Bank has recently relegated Namibia to ever lower ranking of 104th out of 190 countries for ease of doing business behind Mauritius, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Togo and the Seychelles. 

In principles and policy, we are not resolute in our commitment to our goals, objectives and development programmes. Namibia possesses individuals who are short eye sighted and have a very burst of energy when are on the ballot contestation which easily extinguishes in the face of impediments. 

Namibia needs to have absolute freedom to choose other arrangements. The government must establish an intelligentsia culture of its own that is commensurate with the needs and aspirations of its citizens, a culture that is full of transformational leaders than just so-called individuals that are morally and intellectually bankrupt and descript. 

* Tio Erastus Nakasole is an MBA student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, a holder of an Honours degree in Economics. Currently serving as the Sales and Service Manager at HiFi Corporation Namibia. The views expressed do not represent those of his employer. theoerastus@gmail.com