For more than 32 years, the Namibian government has invested hundreds of millions in various strategies to support all regions. Yet, our regions are still struggling with high unemployment, lack of opportunities and shrinking entrepreneurship development.
The local authority leaders should be subjected to some kind of public interview to ensure we appoint suitable mayors, councillors and governors. The appointments should be based on expertise – not political affiliations. I am sure political parties have well-qualified loyal members.
The individuals who want to be appointed as mayor, councillor or governor should have experience and expertise in commerce.
The process of appointment must be clear and transparent, and appointments must be made for those who are suited to take those positions with the correct qualifications. These leaders are killing regional economic development. They are not innovative and creative at all. They are killing businesses in their regions. The lack of vision and inefficiency of these leaders have resulted in a decline in service delivery.
There has been a total lack of quality leadership in all 14 regions. The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. Unfortunately, many of the region’s leaders lack basic economic skills, which is one of the reasons the regions have not made much progress. Therefore, any leader who wants to be successful must have a good knowledge of the economy but some of our leaders do not even understand demand and supply, which is the most basic aspect of economics. In all 14 regions, they are not there yet, but, we would be deceiving ourselves if we do not speak home truths.
Moreover, the mayors, councils and governors are the cause of SME failure because they are not disseminating useful information. The Bank of Namibia, and the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises re-launched the SME Economic Recovery Loan Scheme on 2 February 2023; yet, these leaders failed to set up meetings with SME owners.
It is dangerous to reduce citizenship to a shopping trip, where only fork out cash for things you benefit from. That’s not how a society works. We build society through give and take, doing what is in the public interest. Hence, it is important for all governors, councillors and mayors to come to the party.
They are not elected to be office-bound. Innovation, creativity and agility need to be cherished and celebrated. They need to provide SMEs with valuable expertise and guidance, and help businesses develop leadership skills and build strong teams. Equally, mentorship and coaching programs can also foster innovation and entrepreneurship, contributing to a dynamic business environment.
Against this background, there is a need for an SME information centre to be established across all 14 regions specifically to provide information to the SMEs on developments relating to market movements, and the latest developments and assist in linking SME operators to the service providers at affordable rates.
Thus, regional leaders must integrate the informal economy issues into the overall youth development issues rather than isolating the youth and the informal economy. So, across all 14 regions, SMEs do more than create employment.
They will develop your region and reduce unemployment. They are also engines of economic growth and social development. SMEs contribute more than 12% of GDP, and some global estimates put this figure as high as 70%.
This contribution varies across sectors, and it is particularly high in the service industry, where SMEs account for 60%. SMEs are a vital lifeline in a country, as they represent the grassroots that keep the local economy going by encouraging growth, employment and income.
The local authorities remain an important instrument in any government’s toolbox for societal and public value creation given the right context and collaboration with other stakeholders. They can be catalysts for sustainable value creation for the wider public, and can also build trust by being transparent and accountable through proper communication and reporting of objectives, activities, relationships and performance.
Unfortunately, local authorities made a minor contribution to the government revenue in recent years but required significant budget support and pose sizable fiscal risks, as the portfolio lacks financial viability. This is a total lack of tools, economic insights and expertise.
Being unprepared to develop a corporate sustainability vision, strategy and framework is a monumental risk. Consider social decisions in which the decision-makers’ gains come at the expense of costs inflicted on others.
Moreover, these leaders should think without boxes by adopting economic development committee meetings in their regions. The economic development strategy should focus on providing support to local SME’s, identifying regionally significant employment areas, promoting the region as a location for business investment, and efforts to streamline the planning process while cutting red tape. I recognise there is a vacuum of leadership at the regional levels, which delays economic development for the betterment of the region.
Our regions remain plagued by profound structural poverty and high unemployment. Expectations to solve this at the local authority’s level are doomed. It is bad if mayors, councils and governors are only relevant during election time.
The failure of these leaders has an impact on households, small, medium and micro-enterprises and other investors in the local economy. Economic growth, job creation and local economic development initiatives depend on the strong vision of the region. The business sectors become constrained when the leaders failed to function well. Households directly suffer the consequences when basic service delivery is poor.
However, these leaders can and should empower SMEs. Combining our SME’s real entrepreneurial spirit can succeed to produce far more profound impacts than has been the case, despite the scepticism of neo-liberal and free market pundits.
Unemployment in our regions has acted the rural areas and the economic development of the country from a broad spectrum of socio-economic perspectives. The failure of leaders to apply innovation and creative ideas can lead to poverty and unemployment which is caused by a lack of capacity and essential productive skills for both creative employment in existing organisations and for self-employment.
In conclusion, mayors, councils and governors need to create working models and empower SMEs, which can be duplicated.
Therefore, I urge the mayors, councillors and governors to pull up their socks on service delivery. SMEs have lost hope in the local authorities through its leaders. We want mayors, councils and governors who will be coaching and mentoring our SMEs today – not tomorrow.