Namibia: Corruption and the Old Guard

1 July 2011

opinion

ALLOW me space to air my views on some burning issues that have been on my heart and that are getting worse as time goes by.

I would like to know where the missing N$30 million is. It was a huge case in the public eye and the money had to be recovered and a couple of years down the line we still don’t know who has the money because the court cases are dragging and then we have the N$250 and N$100, not to forget the N$600 million gone missing in a span of six years. Can Government afford to lose more than a billion dollars in hard earned tax monies and still there is no talk of what happened to all that money?

We have been independent for more than 21 years and it feels as if this is 1980 where you have to be careful who you mention or be seen with or otherwise you end up like Kandara

My question is what is wrong with the Government? We need an urgent reform in the Government system – I am not saying a change in the regime – but a good new structure in the Cabinet and parliament, the old guard have been there too long and when you are in a democratic country and still in power or position for as long as they have been, then we have a problem, there is a bomb going to explode and the ones to suffer are the youth and the future leaders and it is all because of what the current comrades are doing to the system.

Comrades after you are gone we are going to have to clean up the mess you made during your stay as leaders and it’s a long process for all of us as the future leaders. I am Swapo and will die one but I will not let them drag down the name that brought us liberation from the apartheid regime.

The N$1 billion or plus could have been used to send students to go study medicine and engineering; fix up the hospitals for N$100 million and another for medical equipment and increase the salary for the nurses as well because they help society a lot. I am not going to say provide housing to the poor because if you do then you need to give them jobs to be able to maintain their houses and contribute to society because you can’t give a house to somebody who won’t be able to pay for water and electricity – it will be a waste of money. But what you can do is get them plots to start little businesses and help themselves to better their lives. Everything costs money and yes it’s the money story, but if it can just vanish then we can make a new budget for just that and we can call it ‘the money that is about to vanish’.

We need a change and real fast. We are politically stable for now and we want to keep it that way.

AllAfrica – All the Time