National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo), supremo Joseph Kauandenge says the pandemic has once again exposed how heavily reliant Namibian companies are on South African imports for business.

“If there is one area that this coronavirus brought to bear in the open, is the vulnerability of this country and its dependence on South African imports,” the secretary general stated yesterday.

He said for Namibia to wean itself from this dependency syndrome on South Africa, it needs to invest heavily on vocational training so that the country can become a producer of basic commodities as opposed to the current scenario of being a consumer of goods imported from SA.
“We believe that the Namibian government should in all earnest ask itself hard questions, amongst those being what have they been doing for the past 30 years of our independence,” said the Nudo supremo.

He says Namibia’s inability to produce any consumer products is a recipe for disaster that will in the long run make it a sitting duck and vulnerable should anything happen to the South African supply chain.

“It is retrogressive of a tendency that in this day and age, our government has failed miserably in capacitating local manufacturers to be able to produce basic commodities that surely our people can produce,” he said.

Nudo believes a country that does not invest in its own human capital and especially in small and medium enterprises in the fields of manufacturing is destined to fail and become mere beggars, said the secretary general
“It is really worrisome that countless of much needed resources continue to be channelled into non-essential fields such as the overburdened executive arm of government, coupled with rampant corruption, while the country does not have any resolve as far as food security is concerned,” he said.

“It is time our leaders in government go back to the basics and devise a blueprint that will position Namibia as a country capable enough to feed its own people, especially so in times of disaster.” 
He said the country’s economic trajectory does not instil confidence at this point in time that there is much-needed muscles to stand on its own, proudly and without worrying where the next meal will come from in times of calamity and that needs to be addressed with speed. – ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na