Renewed call to invest in Namibia

WHILE Government revenue had been reduced due to the effects of the global economic meltdown and other revenue had to be sourced, the Foreign Affairs Ministry would promote Namibia as investment destination, its new Minister Utoni Nujoma promised.

Speaking last week during the budget debate, Nujoma junior said the new budget of N$28,8 billion was “greatly addressing Namibia’s critical challenges like unemployment, particularly among the youth, rural development and gender inequality”.

“Dwindling revenue beckons that we find innovative ways of expanding the revenue base. In this connection I want to affirm the commitment of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to continue promoting Namibia as a favourable destination for foreign direct investment and tourism,” Nujoma told the House.
Justus Garoëb of the UDF yet again reminded the House that the November 2009 elections had been unsatisfactory for the opposition.

“My UDF Party is one of the opposition parties who are deeply offended by the way in which the ruling Swapo Party was conducting the last election as if it was their own thing and not a national event – hence we seek relief from the courts,” Garoëb started his speech on Wednesday.

He was referring to a pending appeal in the Supreme Court after the High Court threw the election challenge of nine opposition parties out last month, claiming the application was filed 90 minutes late after a set deadline.

Out of protest 11 members of three different opposition parties refused to be sworn in as members of the new Parliament on March 19. Only seven MPs of the opposition are now in the House; the other benches remain empty.
“I am sitting in this House with mixed feelings since the ruling Swapo seems to take pride in mocking the opposition parties the way they are congratulating themselves [during this debate] for what they call an overwhelming election victory during the November elections,” Chief Garoëb criticised.

“Unfortunately the don’t-care attitude of the Swapo Party, while knowing that an appeal case is still forthcoming, boils down to even making a mockery of our Judiciary.”

According to the UDF President, Parliament should revisit its priorities since Independence in 1990 and ascertain whether the House had lived up to the expectations of Namibians.

“It was a fervent hope in 1990 that all Namibian parties would collectively establish a democratic culture, to hold free and fair elections and to create a conducive climate thereafter, where the winning party would accept that its victory was to the benefit of the entire nation and not only for a specific dominant political or ethnic faction,” Garoëb said.

“People are wrongly attributing peace and stability in Namibia to the ruling Swapo Party but the opposition parties have done exceptionally well in their concerted efforts to keep peace.

“The political will of some members of Swapo is not yet high enough to promote true reconciliation, what we really need is a governing party, not a ruling part, hosting rulers like in ancient barbaric times,” the UDF leader criticised.

“The political will of the members of the governing party must be such that they also promote multi-party democracy and not belabour undemocratic and illegal means to crush the opposition and ultimately rejoice in a one-party dictatorship.”
Turning to the policy of affirmative action, Garoëb said “we totally failed to live up to the expectations of the Namibian people”.

He said that Prime Minister Nahas Angula had mentioned in the House a while back that Namibian people were becoming poorer and poorer.
If this was the case with the ordinary Namibian citizen, those who had been socially, economically or educationally disadvantaged by past discriminatory laws or practices were surely worse off, he said.

The overall expectation in 1990 was that policies and programmes aimed at redressing imbalances would be forthcoming but unfortunately all Namibians are today still in that same boat, Garoëb alleged.

On the land reform, which in his view was one of the most emotional and highly sensitive issues still to be solved in Namibia, Government was just beating about the bush without solving the real issue.

“All Namibian indigenous people have the right to recognition of the distinctive, spiritual and material relationship with their land, including the total environment of such lands, water, flora, fauna and other resources which indigenous peoples have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used,” he concluded.

Credit: www.namibian.com.na