WINDHOEK – The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, told potential voters at a mini Swapo rally in Havana on Sunday that the ruling party has delivered on its promises since the country attained its independence.
“Twenty-four years on, Swapo has done what the Namibian people have asked Swapo to do. We still have challenges that we have to face. Swapo Party is ready to face those challenges. A lot has been done, definitely a lot needs to be done,” Nandi-Ndaitwah told a crowd of roughly 3 000 people including children, who braced the scorching sun to hear what she had to say.
Initial announcements were that the founding president, Dr Sam Nujoma, would grace the occasion as the main speaker.
Nandi-Ndaitwah who addressed the crowd in English telling them of the tangible developments brought by the ruling Swapo Party, touched on education, health, housing and infrastructure development.
“Education is the key to any sustainable development that is why from the first budget education continues to get over 20 percent,” she said.
Nandi-Ndaitwah said government has done away with the apartheid education system where schools were clustered according to tribes.
“You had a Nama school, a Herero school but that is no more,” she added.
Furthermore, she said there are now eleven schools in the Moses Garöeb, Tobias Hainyeko and Samora Machel constituencies.
“You know very well that there was no school in these three districts (constituencies) but today there are eleven schools. In addition to that, this year we introduced two project schools – one in Tobias Hainyeko and one in Moses Garöeb. Who can fool you that the government has done nothing?” queried Nandi-Ndaitwah.
She also touched on the two public universities, namely, the University of Namibia (Unam) and Polytechnic (University of Science and Technology) as well as the School of Medicine which is part of Unam and the International University of Management, stressing that people should not be misled that “nothing was done since independence”.
She further said people no longer die from HIV/AIDS related ailments like in the past.
She also noted that HIV-negative babies are now born from HIV-positive parents and that Namibia is on its way to eliminating malaria.
With regard to infrastructure, Nandi-Ndaitwah noted that government has invested in infrastructure such as roads, classrooms, electricity.
Government has since independence invested N$33.3 billion in road construction, Nandi-Ndaitwah said.
“You can now move from Windhoek to Cape Town on a tarred road, a very smooth road,” she boasted.
“We know there are still areas to be covered and we will cover them. There were communities in this country who never knew potable water.
Electricity you find even in your cuca-shops. We know we still have much to do. If you give us a mandate we will use it the same way we used it to put up infrastructure,” she said.
She also used the platform to urge people to attend the star rally slated for November 22.
The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) was also present to educate people on how to use the electronic voting machine.
By Alvine Kapitako