Below is an extract of President Hage Geingob’s statement at the Official Opening of the National Conference on Wealth Redistribution and Poverty Eradication delivered on October 26.
I am honoured to deliver the keynote address at the opening of the National Conference on Wealth Redistribution and Poverty Eradication.
This conference is yet another milestone in the realisation of the Namibian House Vision, namely, a prosperous House; a House free of poverty; a House where all members, irrespective of race, colour or creed, live together in harmony; and a House where no one shall be deprived of basic amenities and the required capabilities to help themselves.
The main tenets of my philosophy on the war against poverty are outlined in my maiden State of the Nation Address. In the remainder of my statement, I will from time to time refer to specific points from that maiden State of the Nation Address to buttress salient aspects with respect to the war against poverty.
Poverty is the flip side of prosperity. Therefore, poverty and wealth creation and the distribution thereof are interwoven. It is for this reason that I indicated in my State of the Nation Address that I will task the Minister of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare to organise a National Conference on Wealth Distribution and Poverty Eradication. That conference is now taking place here today.
The expected outcome of this conference, as noted in my State of the Nation Address should be the production of a blueprint on how to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty from the map of Namibia.
In short, my vision for Namibia is to build on the legacy of my predecessors, Founding President Comrade Sam Nujoma and the second President Comrade Hifikepunye Pohamba. These two distinguished sons of the Namibian soil have done a great job to ensure reconciliation, peace, security and stability in our Republic.
However, it was also acknowledged that while these are critical pre-conditions for development, our people do not eat good democracy, our people do not eat good governance and our people do not eat stability. I am aware of the social deficits that the majority of the members of the Namibian House have to deal with everyday.
My task, therefore, is to bring prosperity to all Namibians. I intend to do so, by building on the strong foundation of our Namibian House, by rallying all members of the Namibian House, in the spirit of Harambee, to address wealth distribution and the eradication of poverty. It will be teamwork and not a one-person show. I, therefore, call upon all of us to hold hands and pull together in the same direction.
The Vision of the Namibian House has reverberated across the length and breadth of our Republic. During town hall meetings and at other occasions, one senses that Namibians from all walks of life have bought into the Vision of our Namibian House. Wherever one goes, people of Namibia preach the “gospel” of poverty eradication, inclusivity, Harambee and one Namibia, one Nation.
As we are getting ready to go to the battleground to fight the scourge of poverty there are a number of important things that we should be aware of. Firstly, we have to understand the enemy we are dealing with. Never underestimate your enemy.
In my maiden speech at the United Nations this year, I borrowed from Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen who said, “poverty is not just about income”. Indeed if it were the case, the war on poverty would have been easy, because all one had to do would be to give some form of monetary income to each member of the Namibian House.
In a simplistic sense this is what proponents of the Basic Income Grant are arguing for. Give N$100 to each Namibian, and poverty in Namibia will be eradicated. If only it were that simple. Amartya Sen goes a step further defining poverty as follows: “Poverty is about the deprivation of basic capabilities of human beings.” He further postulates that deprivation of these basic capabilities will manifest themselves in poor outcomes with respect to education, health and other developmental indicators.
From the poverty definition of Amartya Sen, that I subscribe to, it becomes clear that poverty eradication is a complex matter. It, therefore, needs a holistic approach to overcome. That is why I have always argued that the war against poverty and the quest for emancipation must be a multifaceted effort, which we will fight on many fronts, using a myriad of methods at our disposal.
The first step in the fight against poverty is the recognition that all Namibians deserve a dignified life. A dignified life includes decent employment, shelter, water, sanitation, education and access to health care. This will require the input of Government, as well as employers.
Government is close to finalising the legal framework to reduce the income gap.
What is also required is a mental framework where Namibian employers empathise with and remunerate their employees appropriately. What is required is that all Namibians treat each other with dignity and respect and that all Namibians play their role in uplifting fellow Namibians. This sharing mindset in individuals will go a long way in making sure that no Namibian is left out.
We need to use all weapons in the arsenal in the fight against poverty. Some of these weapons we already use and include an array of social grants. However, to comprehensively defeat poverty, we need to create economic opportunities for our people, by growing the economy in an inclusive manner and enhancing the capabilities of all Namibians to fully participate in the economy and in society.
With respect to social grants, evidence-based research by our own National Statistics Agency has shown how effective our current social grants are in reducing poverty. Whilst all grants tested have shown a positive impact on poverty reduction, the old age pension grant in particular showed stellar results. That is why we have immediately increased the old age pension grant by some 66 percent in this financial year alone, with further increases of up to N$1 200 factored into the current Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
Research by the World Bank has shown that the Namibian budget is indeed pro-poor. This is in part because of the generous social grants, but also because of our tax system that is generally progressive in nature. In other words, the more one earns, the more tax one pays, while those who earn less then N$50 000 per year are exempted from paying income tax. It is also because of the zero rating of VAT on certain items consumed by the poorest of the poor.
Going forward, Government will introduce a solidarity tax in the next budget that will call on each income-making Namibian above a certain threshold to make a contribution towards a fund that will be earmarked for poverty eradication activities.
Another form of solidarity tax under consideration would be to entice owners of companies to dilute shareholding to include workers, thereby redistributing more of company income downward instead of upward as is the case when shareholding is concentrated in the hands of a few.
Secondly, poverty cannot be eradicated overnight. Wars are never over in one day. Our immediate aim, therefore, will be to significantly reduce poverty over the medium term. Within the next few months we will quantify exactly by how many percentage points we aim to reduce poverty. In the longer term, say within the next ten years we should be able to eradicate poverty.
The global goal is to eradicate poverty by 2030. In Namibia we say, 2030 is too far. We would like to beat the global deadline by a few years. I believe that if we all pull together, we should be able to beat the global deadline by 5 years, therefore, achieving our goal by 2025.
One immediate measure that we will deploy in the fight against poverty will be the establishment of food banks in all parts of Namibia. The idea here is to bring as soon as possible a halt to hunger poverty in Namibia, especially in urban areas, where there is no access to productive land.
In the Namibian House no child should go hungry. In this connection, our Cuban friends, who fought with us during the liberation struggle will soon be in Namibia to assist with the modalities of setting up the Namibian food bank.
At a high level the food bank will operate along the following lines: It will be organised along street committees or clusters of streets, where young unemployed youth will be engaged to play a critical role in the distribution of food to qualifying families and maintain security, cleanliness and order in those streets. In turn, young unemployed youth will get a minimal income for the work done, and by so doing the notion of free money will be dispelled. The food bank will not be solely Government-driven, but we expect high private sector contribution and a culture of voluntarism by all Namibians. In this connection, I have challenged commercial farmers to donate on a yearly basis at least two head of cattle to the food bank.
The responses I received to date have been overwhelming, indicating that Namibians understand that we will only eradicate poverty if we work together. Cattle donated by commercial farmers and others will be used to establish centralised abattoirs from where fresh meat will be made available, free of charge to the most vulnerable.
The Fisheries Ministry will also play a key role through allocation of fish quotas to the food bank. I believe that the food bank with the assistance of our Cuban friends and with the contribution of all Namibians is something we could get off the ground quickly and stem one element of poverty, which is hunger.
In addition to deploying unemployed youth in the food banks, I have also requested that between 30 000 and 50 000 hectares in the Mangetti area be availed for agricultural related youth enterprise activities. About fifty million Namibian Dollars will be made available this year alone to get this activity off the ground.
I would like to underscore that the food bank will not, as some people may think, substitute work and create a culture of dependency. The Government will implement measures to ensure that within the communities, only the most vulnerable are assisted. This assistance will also be accompanied with initiatives to make such vulnerable members are more independent and able to provide for themselves.
There is an expression, which holds that, “Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.” It is in this spirit that I have decided to set aside 20 percent of my salary as my personal contribution towards the war on poverty. I know that many salary drawers already contribute immensely to the poverty reduction in their own extended households. Be it by providing food, accommodation or paying schools fees. It is something I also do as a father and uncle.
However, the idea of pledging on top of that to someone outside the family, a third non-related person, is something that I would like to promote. It is really not about how much one can give, but it is about the principle, and one can also give in non-monetary form. We must allow the spirit of Harambee to manifest itself for the good of all Namibians. We must succeed as One Namibia, One Nation.
It is true that Namibia is resource-rich country. However, it is not entirely true that Namibia is as rich as portrayed by some. To put this in perspective, even if there was no skewed income distribution, Namibia’s per capita income in US dollars would only be about 15 percent of the per capita income of the United States of America.
We will, therefore tackle poverty from all fronts, through safety nets, access to quality education, and by creating jobs and growing the economy. A crucial aspect of the war on poverty will, therefore, be to create economic and social mobility opportunities for all.