By Albertus Mutonga Matongela
1. Introductory Remarks
The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) was officially launched by its leaders at the Independence Arena in Katutura, Windhoek on Saturday, November 17, 2007. While Mr Jesaya Nyamu gave some opening remarks, Mr Hidipo Hamutenya presented a keynote address to the crowd. It transpired that the latter is the interim President of the RDP pending party elections slated for 2008.
The current article dwells mainly on the key economic ideology of the RDP and tries to fill the gap in terms of providing issues that the author feels were left out from the keynote address of the RDP interim President.
Economic Plan of the RDP
Many countries around the world, Namibia included, are preoccupied with reduction of poverty and combating unemployment. While these economic challenges are not that severe in advanced economies, they are acute in developing countries. Economic theory tells us that for a country to be balanced or in a steady state there has to be low and stable prices, employment creation, economic growth, and external balance.
I am certain that you, the reader, are much interested in the economic plan of the RDP. This is because it touches not only on your standard of living but also on your cost of living. RDP says it is different and would like to make a difference. What follows are the summarized concerns the party feels are currently facing Namibia and the strategies that it intends to employ in order to drive the country forward:
– Low economic growth. The RDP feels that Namibia used to be promising and progressive but recently has been on the decline.
The party’s preoccupation would be to grow the economy once put in power by the electorate. It is geared to drive the economy forward and promote foreign investment in order to increase the standard of living of the Namibian people.
– Poverty and unemployment is high. The RDP feels that these central economic problems are high and it is geared to address these once put in power by the electorate.
– Declining state of education and health care. The RDP feels that the state of the education and health care sectors is going down. It is of the opinion that a workforce that is healthy, trainable and adaptive is required for a productive nation.
– Water supply problems and electricity shortages. The RDP feels that it is geared to address water supply for all communities in the country. It is also geared to address electricity shortages by ensuring that, among others, electricity projects including hydropower projects are implemented to ensure electricity supply in Namibia.
– Declining competitiveness. The RDP is geared to ensure that Namibia becomes competitive among African nations. It feels that Namibia will attain its previous competitiveness ranking of 3 – 4 from the current 15 among African countries.
Some Issues Not Answered
It was a privilege to listen to the speeches of the leaders of the RDP. Issues surrounding driving the economy forward and improving the standard of living of the Namibian people were interesting to me.
In my view some issues related to how the economy could be driven forward remain unanswered. Since there are so many issues to write about, I only summarize a few points here below:
– The leaders of the RDP did not say much on certain issues affecting competitiveness like the current reliance on foreign trade with RSA. RSA still dominates Namibia’s trade with other countries. This does not augur well especially if Namibia were to de-link its currency from the ZAR right now.
Namibia’s main trade partners include the United Kingdom, RSA, Spain, and Switzerland. It was going to be interesting if the RDP was going to touch on this issue.
– Domestic investment. In one of the previous Bank of Namibia seminars we learned that domestic investment is equally important to foreign investment. Funding to SME is still a challenge in Namibia and the Government of the Republic of Namibia is committed to ensure that SMEs get a fair share of development or industrial finance. It was going to be much interesting to hear what the RDP has in store for someone selling kapana for example.
– Certain aspects related to rural development. It is a common fact that unemployment is high in Namibia at 35 percent. I feel that unemployment in rural areas is acute because that is where the majority of people live, and the reason why we see informal settlements in towns and cities in Namibia is because of limited employment opportunities in less urbanized areas of the country. Unemployment is a structural problem, which takes time to reduce and it is pleasing to see efforts being done by the Namibian government to address this social and economic problem. It was going to be interesting to hear how the RDP is geared to address lack of business and employment opportunities in remote parts of the country.
– Albertus Mutonga Matongela is an economic analyst based in Windhoek, Namibia. Views expressed here-in are his own and should not be associated with his employer and this paper.