By Wezi Tjaronda
WINDHOEK
Namibia’s economic growth over the years has not made a dent on the soaring unemployment figure of over 36 percent.
Over the past two years, the country has recorded growth of over four percent, with 2005 recording 4.2 percent, while estimates for 2006 indicate that the economy grew by 5.1 percent.
But this growth has by and large been jobless growth, according to Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary, Calle Schlettwein.
“Whatever growth we achieved, it created jobs elsewhere and not in Namibia,” he said on Monday during the Budget Analysis workshop.
In an economic outlook published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in February, the institute asked where the economy has gone to if not creating jobs.
He said Namibia’s ratings on competitiveness was not impressive due to a drop in productivity levels in the private and public sectors, but mainly the latter.
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Alpheus !Naruseb, concerned with the level of poverty, wondered whether it was due to poor planning that many people were living in poverty.
!Naruseb cited the stark differences in people’s income as something that should prompt the nation to find ways of addressing the problem.
“When driving, you see someone driving a vehicle that is worth over N$500 000 and across the bridge, there is abject poverty,” the minister said, adding: “How do we take steps to alleviate the plight of the poor – is it that we don’t see it?”
But said economist, Robin Sherbourne, the past 17 years have not seen a dynamic private sector but a growing number of people that depend on government bureaucracy for a living.
“This country needs aggressive and hungry businesses people,” said Sherbourne.
Reports upon reports indicate that capital outflow and the country’s dependence on imports have contributed to the unemployment situation. A recent report on government procurement indicated that Namibia’s precarious situation in which it imports 80 percent of its goods and services was helping create economic growth and jobs in countries from which it imports the goods.
Some of the goods and services that Namibia produces but are imported include buttons, stationery, clothing material for security forces, shoes, leather boots, cleaning materials and cement, among many others.
The IPPR in the outlook said despite job creation being a core development objective, Namibia has little to celebrate. The labour force survey of 1993 indicates that out of a total labour force of over 521 000, only over 350 000 were employed and a decade later, the labour force grew to 608 610 but only 385 329 people were employed.
“Despite an economic growth of 60 percent, between 1993 and 2004, employment grew by 10 percent,” said the outlook, adding that this suggests that there is a mismatch between the type of growth the country has experienced and jobs created.
Driving economic growth this year again is the mining sector supported by the financial intermediation, wholesale and retail sectors, as well as telecommunications. Not much, according to the outlook, is expected from fishing as it is on the recovery path while construction, agriculture and manufacturing are likely to face decline.
This, said Schlettwein, is an area the country has to look into and find ways of making economic growth productive.