I say, comrades, Haulamba la Nangobe’s mission is to guide and teach his fellow Namibians with the view to instill in them critical thinking skills and to assert their own rights as well as the rights of others, where this is warranted, to talk truth to power without fear or favour!
Omkwanekamba holds that Namibians have, for too long, been taken for a ride by unprincipled and hypocritical politicians, because many Namibians are gullible and or fearful to talk back to politicians. Omkwanekamba fears no man. Now hear this:
Grave Economic Crisis
This country is experiencing a grave, not fatal, economic crisis. There is no doubt about that. The root causes and proximate factors for this crisis are both national and international.
National Level
At the national level the root causes and exacerbating factors for the economic crisis include: (1) pandemic corruption in the public sector (read GIPF, ODC, AVID, CSIB Bank, SME Bank, Air Namibia, Omusati toilets, RCC, TIPEEG, Mass Housing, bloated public service, etc.); (2) maladministration by inexperienced public servants who have been hired in terms of Swapo Party’s job-for-comrades (JFC) policy; and (3) heavy expenditure on social grants, such as: (3.1) liberation veteran payouts; (3.2) increased old age pension payouts; (3.3) orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) payouts, and (4) similar public expenditures.
3. Insofar as the bloated public service is concerned, Haulamba blames Nujoma, Pohamba and Geingob regimes without exception!
International Level
4. At the international level, the economic crisis is caused and or exacerbated by, inter alia, trade imbalances, corruption and political insecurity caused by trends such as the rise of Alt-Right (read Trump) and Brexit, war in the Middle East and so on and on, as well as state capture (read Zupta) in neighbouring South Africa.
What Keniikombo Is Doing
In order to mitigate and or combat this economic crisis, Cde Keniikombo, and our very able and no-nonsense Finance Minister Cde Calle Schlettwein, (to their credit), have embarked inter alia upon cutting down on public expenditures and on weeding out corruption through especially the corrupt allocation of construction tenders.
Team Swapo?
But what is it that Team Swapo is saying about how they would deal with the above-mentioned economic crisis and its causes and exacerbating factors? Almost nothing! They are, however, quick to angrily blame everything on Cde Keniikombo personally. This is political expediency, hypocrisy and cheap propaganda!
All they are saying now is that Cde Keniikombo and Cde ‘Ovafyonaanye’ Nicanor have violated Swapo Party constitution! But when have any of the Swapo Party or even opposition leaders (for that matter) ever respected their own constitutions, let alone the Namibian Constitution?
So, let us hear from Team Swapo about what and how exactly they will do to address that economic crisis, which Cde Keniikombo is not doing already? What is it? What will you do, Cde Citizen, Cde Maudjuu, Cde Maria, Cde Kangulohi, Cde Petrina, Cde Armas and Cde Martha?
Please explain to this nation and to Swapo Party delegates now before the Congress!
* Phil ya Nangoloh is a Namibian human rights practitioner. He heads the organisation Namrights, formerly Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights