WINDHOEK - Swanu president Tangeni Iijambo has reached out to workers in the informal sector, saying his party will do everything to promote their plight once elected into power.
Iijambo, who was addressing a final rally in Katutura Central, urged domestic workers, taxi and truck drivers, security guards and charcoal workers to defeat the ruling party at the ballot box by voting for Swanu on Wednesday. “Those unreasonable traffic fines and harassment are a capitalist ploy to steal your hard-earned income and dignity. I appeal to all domestic servants, our mothers and sisters to join us to fight for a living wage and human dignity,” said Iijambo who opened the gathering with a guitar performance of a John Lennon song titled ‘Imagine’.
“I further call on the people of the great Zambezi Region not to be intimidated by the Swapo regime. We stand with you and therefore demand the immediate release of all political prisoners in order to pave the way for open and genuine dialogue on the question of the right to self-determination,” he said.
The party leader said the majority of people have been condemned to ever deepening levels of poverty and inequality, widespread landlessness and homelessness, massive and growing unemployment, especially among the youth. He added that public healthcare is deteriorating, there is rampant crime, gender-based violence and growing insecurity, crumbling national infrastructure and the inequitable distribution of state resources with strong regional biases as well as dismal economic prospects due to endemic corruption and self-enrichment by the ruling elite and their foreign sponsors. In addition, Iijambo said Swanu would establish a transparent legal framework for the awarding of EPLs and fishing quotas and other natural resources.
He said the party would further make investment in social responsibility a compulsory pre-condition for all investors in the resource sector. “We also undertake to tighten and introduce new stringent requirements in respect of environmental impact assessment (EIA) plans in the resource sector and ban phosphate mining in Namibian waters to protect the fishing industry.”
He said they would introduce a basic income grant for poor Namibians because they deserve a secure and liveable income.