Need For Clear Division Between Party And State

"COMRADE, if after TIPEEG (Targeted Investment Programme for Employment and Economic Growth) you still remain poor, then you are really stupid."

These were the words recently uttered by a senior Government employee who is key to the implementation of the N$14.6-billion, three-year programme which is reportedly earmarked to create 104 000 direct jobs and help Government to reduce the unemployment rate, which now stands at 51.2 per cent.
Tons of ink have already been spilled analysing the possible impact which TIPEEG could have on the country's socio-economic status and I don't intend to dwell too much on it.
But it is worthwhile to mention that even though so much had been written about TIPEEG and its expected outcomes, such as the 646 projects through this year's Development Budget, the real impact will only be felt in the long run.
That, though, does not mean that calls to have a more open discussion about TIPEEG and its tenders and spending must be ignored. More so, after remarks such as those made by a senior Government employee who is known to be a schemer of deals in his own interest.
The Director General of the National Planning Commission, Tom Alweendo, is on record as saying that companies who employee local people will get preference, with the employment of Namibians a prerequisite.
I do not doubt that both Alweendo and Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila had the best of intentions for TIPEEG but there are similarly many others, like the person I quoted in the introduction, who have transformed some of the Ministries and other Government institutions into a cesspit of corruption.
For them, it is their 'time to eat' and I am almost sure that Swapo Party Youth League secretary, Elijah Ngurare, had these tenderpreneurs in mind when he asked recently: "Where is TIPEEG?"
He was concerned that TIPEEG would be used only to “score political points” while the “bread-and-butter issues”, such as youth and rural empowerment, would be pushed to the back burner.
Ngurare also called on his “comrades deployed in Government” to pursue the party’s 2009 election manifesto, instead of “personal manifestos or self-enrichment”.
I am against the jobs-for-comrades scheme but I agree with Ngurare that TIPEEG should not be a self-enrichment scheme for a select few who have already made it their mission to keep information about the job creation programme away from others in order to benefit friends and family.
This is one of the main reasons why there needs to be a clear division between the party (in this case Swapo) and the State.
Some civil servants in top positions are running the State as a party with benefits filtering through to the politically connected and cronies.
When political parties win elections, they form governments to run the State. And so the party has every right to call, for instance, Ministers to account, but it does not have the right to step in and take over Government.
We should guard against the expansion of the role of the party well beyond that allowed for in our Constitution because the conflation of the party and State leads to the promotion of such things as the attitude of entitlement we see among civil servants like the one I quoted above and who sees TIPEEG as an enrichment scheme for tenderpreneurs.
And before I am accused of being an 'imperialist agent' whose main aim is to only criticise Swapo, I must state that the malaise is felt by many people and cannot be reduced to one political party only.
This entitlement attitude was seen in Khorixas where the Council was run like an extension of a UDF arm or wing for a long time, and also in the early years of Independence when Katima Mulilo under the DTA did the same.
The duties of top civil servants in decision-making positions should thus not equal the ability to divert State funds, whether through tenders or fraudulent activities, into own accounts and to live luxurious lives, or for the State to become nothing more than a collective piracy.
Greed, such as that displayed by the senior Government employee dealing with TIPEEG, is thus a deceptive monster that claws at the hearts of men and even ugly politicians.
We should avoid a situation where citizens will only look on as spectators, while senior public officials, who visit sections of Katutura (where hunger truly lives) once in a while from their elitist suburbs to caress their emotions about being close to the people, feed at the trough.
One way to do it is through a clear division between the party and the State.