2014-11-19Staff Report 2 WINDHOEK- The round six Afrobarometer opinion poll shows that 78 percent of Namibians interviewed favoured the adoption of the proposed Basic Income Grant (BIG) programme. In total, 1 200 adults were interviewed in all the 14 regions during the period between 27 August and 19 September this year, and nearly eight out of 10 Namibians favoured BIG - even if it meant introducing new taxes. The study also shows that nearly nine in 10 Namibians want reform in the tendering system to eliminate nepotism and favouritism. The Procurement Bill was removed from parliamentary debate in November last year and has not yet returned to the chambers for further deliberation. Furthermore, the study discloses that nearly nine out of 10 Namibians interviewed (87%) did not want pay raises for political office bearers and executives of State-owned enterprises. The interviewees felt that party loyalty was too much of a criterion in government hiring procedures at the expense of service delivery. “These officials are already well within the top one percent of income earners in the country,” the research document, released yesterday, reads. Additionally, 86 percent of Namibians assert that too much emphasis is placed on party loyalty “jobs for comrades at the expense of better service delivery. Moreover, 43 percent of people in the urban areas believe that government is handling the economy fairly well compared to 35 percent in rural areas. However, 20 percent of people in urban areas believe that government is addressing education very badly compared to 19 percent in rural areas. Additionally, 44 percent of people in urban areas believe that government is managing the basic health services fairly well compared to 43 percent in rural areas. Furthermore, 65 percent of those interviewed believe that government is failing to tackle corruption or failing to handle corruption. According to the survey, Namibians continue to reject non-democratic regimes by a very large margin. “Namibians mostly define democracy in relation to personal freedoms such as speech, movement, organisation membership, access to information. While the second largest group links democracy to elections and multiparty-ism,” it reads. The survey states that many government policies on managing the economy, health care and education received high positive evaluation from respondents Job creation, poverty and income inequality received the worst negative evaluations in the survey. The Afrobarometer is an African led, non-partisan research project that measures a country’s social, political and economic atmosphere from 1999 to date. The sixth round survey is for the period between 2014 and 2015 covering up to 35 African countries. Survey Warehouse and the Institute for Public Policy Research conducted the Afrobarometer survey in Namibia. By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa 2014-11-19Staff Report 2
