Stop Politicising Corruption

I AM seriously depressed. The alarming rate of corruption in Namibia is getting to me. Almost on a daily basis the media report about one or other corruption case. The only difference is that it started with hundreds being stolen, but now it is no longer hundreds or even thousands. Millions disappear overnight and some people become rich just as quickly. When you see your neighbour suddenly (whether a casual worker or clergyman) giving a huge facelift to his house, buying a top of the range vehicle or taking the family on a foreign trip, you immediately suspect that they must have laid their hands on millions. And it is not a jackpot they have won! It has become a tough task looking for people who systematically work their way up to riches in Namibia. Many opt for the quick fix including stealing, bribery and other forms of corruption. Worse still, many of us admire those who become rich overnight without even questioning how they achieved it. For many young people, they become their role models. Of late it has become a norm for people in key positions at Government ministries, parastatals or even in the private sector to scheme about how they can enrich themselves instead of ensuring efficient service delivery. Networks are formed and millions move between accounts while some turn a blind eye. In fact, I can safely say that some of these syndicates own our leaders! As soon as the leaders smell the rat, they are made to benefit (in most cases indirectly) even if it is just the crumbs falling from the tables. In the most recent instances tenders are not only given fraudulently but the work is either not started or is incomplete despite payments having been made. Worst is that procedures are not followed to first inspect the work or that payments are signed off by those connected to the tenderers. Surely they must be getting something in return. We have had reports of money being transferred between accounts and as it is moved, the amount gets less because people take their share of the cake. Such corruption delays service delivery and promotes poverty in a country which is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Corruption; where our leaders have declared zero tolerance on corruption; and where we have established an organisation governed by the laws to fight corruption. One gets the impression that ours is just a token commitment. In the early 1990s over-expenditure was first regarded as going over budget, but now it should constitute corruption because, for instance, accounting officers and others in key decision-making positions deliberately go for more expensive tenders so that they can benefit in the process. The corrupt tenderers will not pay from their own money. Will they? They will always recover it through inflated prices. Therefore, even if we have the Anti-Corruption Commission or the President shouting loudly about zero tolerance, it does not automatically translate into good action or minimise the problem. In fact, some of those who shout the loudest are among the main culprits. It’s time to let them know that they have gone too far.

To Progress In Swapo Keep Out Of Others’ Fights

TWO years ago former Hardap Swapo Party Youth League regional secretary Titus /Huisemab was seen by some in the youth wing as a rising star, but the sun has set on him even before he has achieved anything tangible. /Huisemab became too big for his boots and started taking on fights that were not his. He forgot that he was what he was because of the youth wing structures and not because of his personality, education or connections in the senior hierarchy of the party. To start off with, the young man from the South came to real prominence when, somewhat out of the blue, he was nominated to chair a committee which was basically engineered to oust Jutta Shikomba, SPYL’s deputy secretary, in February 2009. At that stage her suspension was linked to meetings she held at Rundu without the knowledge of SPYL secretary Elijah Ngurare as well as her refusal to explain her behaviour to the national executive committee. Other allegations were associated with factionalism and tribalism. Following a meeting in the garden town of Okahandja a committee was appointed and /Huisemab was the chairperson. Other members were Swapo’s regional co-ordinator for Oshikoto, Armas Amukwiyu, Swapo MP Eveline !Nawases-Kayele and former Nanso leader Neville Andre Itope. Shikomba refused to appear before that committee and that is the main reason why she has found herself in the political wilderness as far as her position in the youth wing is concerned. As can be seen from the above, /Huisemab led a powerful youth committee and even had the protection of the likes of Ngurare to the extent that though he had failed to carry out his duties as Hardap secretary, he remained untouchable. For instance, the youth league suspended former Mariental Urban Constituency Swapo district secretary Jan Johannes Herero and Mariental Rural Constituency Swapo district secretary Simon Dukuleni from their structures. Their sin was that the two, along with Gibeon constituency Swapo district secretary Ivan Pieters and Rehoboth rural constituency executive member Adrian Pieters, not only launched a scathing attack on /Huisemab but also called Ngurare and now Karas governor Clinton Swartbooi his “godfathers”. They also alleged that /Huisemab had stolen party funds and had failed to run the SPYL properly. /Huisemab’s argument then was that the group was instigated by some senior party leaders in Hardap Region and they were blocked from standing for election in the structures. /Huisemab thus survived the onslaught not because of his own character or for what he had done in the structures but due to the backing he had from those in Windhoek. But, as I mentioned some time back, there comes a time in Swapo when ‘dog eats dog’. Those who close ranks to oust others turn against one another as the pie gets smaller. There is nothing wrong with /Huisemab having ambitions to become the youth league secretary but his sin was to forget the masses on his way to the top. Instead of keeping contact and being active at grassroots level, he was more active at national level in other people’s fights for leadership. Now he has paid the price and will wander in the political wilderness unless he goes back to the structures and ‘begs’ for forgiveness. That in itself is a major task as he has made too many enemies, including Hardap governor Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, whom he previously accused of using fellow youth to oust him. Thus as things stand now, he is not likely to make it to the Swapo congress later this year and it will take him another few years before he can rejoin the youth structures, but by then he may not qualify due to age. His demise should serve as a good political lesson for other aspiring Swapo youth!

Putting To Sleep The Ghost Of Nujoma

WHEN former President Sam Nujoma retired from active politics I rejoiced for one reason: the media were now finally free from bullying at State House media briefings.

Nujoma would call the media to brief them about some very pertinent issue and once he had read his statement, would just stand up and walk out. Those were the times when he was not in the mood to entertain questions – and they were many.
When he was in a fighting mood, journalists could see it from his body language and if you raised your hand for a chance to ask a question, you could expect anything. I remember very well the day he called a media briefing to respond to an article I wrote about retirement packages for ministers and how, out of the blue, when I stood up to ask him a question, he jumped the gun by first wanting to know: “Maletsky? Are you Namibian?”
Journalists can tell many tales about how Nujoma was a master at intimidating and bullying. But some of us later grew accustomed to it. In fact, a media briefing without Nujoma wagging his finger at journalists or some imperialist wasn’t exciting.
But that was Nujoma and, as I’ve said, such bullying became a thing of the past when he left State House.
However, the trend seems to be rearing its ugly head again. This time among some political and economic hopefuls who try to intimidate and humiliate the scribes.
I am tempted to single out unionist Petrus Nevonga of the Namibia Public Workers Union.
Nevonga calls a media briefing and refuses to answer questions. How arrogant is that?
He is not the only one though. This trend is growing among some hopefuls who think media-bashing is a key to their political success, especially in Swapo.
They call the media ‘agents of imperialists’ and running dogs of the rich and powerful in the West yet no one can prove such allegations.
In fact, and if I may say it, some of them are the johnny-come-latelies in politics who hardly know the history of those they are accusing. That really is a shame.
I have no problem when readers or members of the public take the media on over pertinent issues or questionable conduct, but name-calling just for the sake of it and chasing media from briefings they called is hitting below the belt.
Whether they like it or not, the media will continue to be the watchdogs and will continue to expose, inform, educate and entertain.
They have done that for many years and, as my former editor Gwen Lister would remind me from time to time, not even the ruthless Casspirs could stop some of them prior to Namibia’s independence.
Those who try to belittle the media should know that their freedom today is partly thanks to the media (especially those like The Namibian) who exposed the atrocities in the past and, for instance, kept Swapo leaders informed about what was going on in the country
Why would the same organisations who endured so much hardship now be trying to destabilise the country or be out to destroy the Government or some individuals. To whose or what benefit?
If something is wrong, it is best for those involved to admit and correct it. After which they should move on and not keep bullying the media or blaming reporters for their own wrongs.
There are many problems and challenges we face as a nation and should tackle jointly instead of name-calling and fighting among ourselves. One of these, of course, is the high rate of corruption, and if the media have exposed someone’s involvement, they should simply own up to it instead of attacking the messenger.
Love or loathe the media, there is no ignoring them. Not even political gangsterism will achieve that.

Jockeying For Positions In Full Swing In Swapo

THE jockeying for key positions such as those of regional coordinators for Swapo is in full swing with some candidates conducting door-to-door campaigns despite a call made by leaders last year that this be delayed until the party congress.

I, for one, support such campaigning because candidates ‘sell’ themselves and what they intend to do for the people they will serve in the region, constituency, branch or section, instead of those who hide behind vague statements such as ‘I will ensure continuity’.
This week media reports said that seven people have entered the race for the vacant regional coordinator position in the Omaheke Region along with those of regional party treasurer, mobiliser, Omaheke Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) secretary and five district coordinators.
The positions are not only key to the party’s proper functioning in that region but successful candidates will surely wield influence in who will attend the party’s congress later in the year, which is set to vote for the vice president, secretary general and deputy secretary general positions.
If that congress adopts the rules proposed by the Swapo Party Youth League, which suggest that the vice president of the party should become the only and automatic presidential candidate (or in the absence of a such person the secretary general or deputy secretary general), almost every Swapo member would probably want to attend it.
But it is not a given that the rules will be adopted. The fact that no movement – in terms of serious discussions at central committee or political bureau level had taken place – means that the leadership intend to keep the race as open as possible.
Thus a candidate who is not in the top four, like Deputy Prime Minister Marco Hausiku whose name continuously pops up in discussions around succession, can also enter the race through a suggestion from the floor at congress.
This is not what, for instance, the Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) wants. They want to avoid the 2004 scenario where President Hifikepunye Pohamba, Prime Minister Nahas Angula and former Foreign Affairs Minister Hidipo Hamutenya squared off in a bitter head-on confrontation, with victimisation of, in particular Hamutenya supporters. The latter ultimately left the party and now leads the Rally for Democracy and Progress.
Since President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s outburst about the conduct of the two leading candidates – Swapo vice president Hage Geingob and Secretary General Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana – Hausiku’s name has also risen to prominence and he seems to have support among the silent neutrals in the party.
Those who support Hausiku’s candidacy claim his election will give recognition to the role played by those who remained inside the country during the liberation struggle and he is senior to Jerry Ekandjo, who also has presidential ambitions. Because of that, they also claim that Hausiku will unite regions.
Hausiku, though, will be a compromise candidate if Geingob and Ithana fail to adhere to the call made by Pohamba late last year.
The camps of the two candidates were on a campaign which involved some victimisation and, even though Pohamba reportedly prefers Geingob, he had to call both to order. Geingob is also believed to have the backing of former Swapo leader Sam Nujoma and the two could be key in determining who becomes the next leader of the party.
As for now, many in the regions are on a serious campaign drive, holding meetings until the early hours, but their primary goal is to make it to regional leadership positions which they regard as the stepping stone to the party’s national leadership.

Let’s Take Responsibility For Our Destiny

MY piece this week is inspired by a sermon delivered by a clergyman last Sunday which centred around taking responsibility.

Pastor Gareth Stead of His People spoke about responsibility – a subject I have touched on in the past.
He said many of us blame others for the situation and circumstances in which we find ourselves but that it was time we accept responsibility ourselves. He pointed out four levels of responsibility:
1) Stuck – you are stuck and refuse to take responsibility
2) Grow – you take ownership and take the challenge head-on
3) Lead – you take responsibility for the situation you and others are in with the view to change it
4) Blame – when you take the blame for everyone else and lead them to change.
For years now, we have blamed everyone else but ourselves for a lot of things we have gone through. We blame the ‘boers’ for our education system, ‘imperialists’ for our poverty and our employers for lack of motivation at work!
As Pastor Stead said: the whites blame the blacks and the blacks (blame) the whites. The coloureds blame the whites on Friday and blacks on Monday. There is always someone else to blame.
I have said it before and I repeat again. Even President Hifikepunye Pohamba, as powerful as he constitutionally is, blames others and keeps complaining when instead he needs to assume leadership and to give serious and stern orders. If you disagree, read his statement at the first Cabinet session or the one he delivered this week when he opened the new session of Parliament. In both cases he spoke of responsibility but sounded like he was begging.
For instance, this week he used words such as “urge” and “encourage” when he spoke about the responsibility of the members of parliament towards the electorate as well as accountability for their work instead of telling the lawmakers that they “must”. It must be an order and there should be timelines to monitor such orders.
If President Pohamba does not stamp his authority on issues and decisions, no one will take him seriously because he is also not taking responsibility and is just a ‘people pleaser’.
Similarly, in our society today almost everyone blames one or the other thing, but seldom takes responsibility themselves. Even the rapist blames his hormones, as Pastor Stead said.
I believe we have long blamed others instead of taking charge of our destiny.
Someone who failed grade 12 at the end of last year is probably 18 to 19 years old now. That person can use the next one to two years to improve the marks and still be able to enrol for tertiary or vocational education and finished it by the age 25.
If such a person lives until the age of 65, he or she will have been productive for at least 35 to 40 years.
However, if the person drops out, stays and ‘rots’ at home and only blames the system, such a person will be unproductive for around 40 years, which is two-thirds of his or her life. Who is to blame for that?
What I mean with the above example is that no matter what happens to you, it is not what happens that really matters but how you respond to it in terms of positivity and turning things around.
There are many examples one can point to but the most important message here is that we need to take charge of our lives and destiny.
Stop the blame game because it helps no one. Instead it is detrimental to our progress and takes up too much of our energy.
I believe that if we are not moving forward, the only thing stopping us is ourselves!

Is It Failure In Planning Or Just Plain Corruption?

THERE is a saying which goes: if you fail to plan, you actually plan to fail.

Many of the events currently taking place in Namibia can be associated with that saying. What immediately comes to mind are the challenges facing our education system and the devastating impact the annual floods have on people in the North.
It is sad for me to start the year’s first column on such pessimistic note but it is as much my duty to point out the wrongs as it is to give praise where it is due.
Floods have hit the northern parts of Namibia for the past several years and, and at least on two occasions, the President declared emergencies. Last year, several people drowned.
Yet, nothing effective has been done since the last floods to prepare for this rainy season.
Hardly any flood relief preparations were undertaken, apart from setting up relocation centres for people left homeless by floodwater.
It is a fact that when a natural disaster like a flood hits, people need immediate lifesaving assistance – emergency shelter, clean water and food.
However, such needs change as soon as the floods have receded and the people seek longer-term assistance to rebuild their lives, and plan a better future for their families. It may seem obvious, but all too often this transition is badly mishandled, putting lives in jeopardy – a situation which repeats itself within a few months.
So why did the Government not do something tangible to prevent this seemingly avoidable human suffering? Why would they permit people to continue living ‘in the water’?
My experience with some corrupt senior civil servants has taught me that they are either waiting or are in the process of setting up companies through links to give one another tenders that will inevitably not be completed.
Some of the senior civil servants in key positions are on record that they do not release funds for projects in regions until they are sure that there are people they can connect with to get kickbacks or to benefit in another form.
That is why some major tenders are advertised and prospective applicants given two to three days to put in bids. The winners of the tenders are already lined up!
In the case of the floods, there is a plethora of laws and regulations that apparently must be set up before work is done. The red tape is used to not only ensnare development but also delay it until such time that funds are redirected for individual gain at the expense of the people.
What is clearly lacking is pressure from the top.
Our leaders need to set very clear goals for the senior managers who have become too big for their shoes. There is no effective monitoring while accountability lacks in many of the projects we are undertaking.
In the past month or so, when our politicians went ‘home’ to rest, some senior officials were wheeling and dealing. By the time the politicians returned to office, crucial decisions had already been made and millions redirected towards cronies we all know will never deliver on promises made in tenders.
And by the time politicians realise their mistakes and want to cancel the tenders, Government must pay millions to get rid of such tenderers.
The situation people find themselves in in the North is the direct result of ineffective management coupled with the selfishness of corrupt individuals.
We are told about a master plan for Oshakati that Cabinet had approved last year and which needs to be implemented.
If all the companies were already in place and those earmarked for ‘public-private partnerships’ were organised, ‘cadre empowerment’ would have been in full swing and some token work already underway by now.
But because those who want to benefit are still fighting it out for the Neckartal millions, their attention is diverted from the North and so the masses continue to suffer.

Swapo Women’s Congress: Paving The Way For ‘A Neutral’?

THE outcome of last weekend’s Swapo Party Women’s Council congress has given many following the 2012 Swapo succession debate much food for thought.

While, for instance, there were attempts by both camps of the two main candidates for the vice presidency race in Swapo to block the incumbent women’s league secretary Petrina Haingura from re-election or even standing, she thrashed her opponent and came out tops with a huge majority.
Her victory was not entirely surprising but the huge number of votes gave an indication that there is a third group – the silent majority – who prefer neither Hage Geingob nor Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana as the party’s candidate for the 2014 national presidential election.
That group could be key in next year’s congress of the party and President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s recent outburst against the two candidates indicates that he was driving home a message that Geingob and Ithana should remember that other possibilities do exist.
I can safely mention the likes of Deputy Prime Minister Marco Hausiku and Speaker of the National Assembly Theo-Ben Gurirab as two of the possibles.
Both are in the mould of Pohamba and having either of them will mean that the “ship will remain as steady as Pohamba kept it”. That’s continuity in Pohamba’s eyes and mind.
He likes to play it safe and under Hausiku or Gurirab, we will neither make a big leap forward nor deteriorate significantly.
A ‘neutral’ like those two would also be a surprise to all those who have so far invested in one way or another in the underground campaigns of Geingob and Ithana.
So when we see attempts fail, like the one to remove Haingura by lobbying Pohamba, it gives us an indication that the President has made room for an outsider in the race, in the event the two key candidates do not toe the line as he requested.
Of course we know that Haingura had to be wheelbarrowed in by former President Sam Nujoma (as one of his 10 choices for the National Assembly). Therefore, the former nurse from Rundu was seen as one of Nujoma’s favourites and it was not a surprise that Pohamba gave her a deputy minister position when he took over in 2005.
It is worth pointing out that although Ithana supported Haingura to become the SPWC secretary during the Rundu congress election five years ago, much has changed since then.
For instance, Ithana’s camp included those who blamed Haingura for failing to push the party top structures for a 50/50 representation which would have ensured that more women were elected to Parliament. Geingob’s people also supported the push which failed to materialise.
But Haingura managed to shrug off both sides, thanks to support from the neutrals.
Many would then ask how it was that Ithana topped the list but was not able to convince the congress to elect her candidate of choice.
Swapo’s voters, especially at congress, have a voting pattern that perplexes me continually.
When they target one person, they seem to forget another opponent.
In simple terms, the women were out to stop Karin Nghishidimbwa from becoming secretary of the SPWC and that is where their energy was concentrated. In the process they ‘just ticked’ the name of Ithana without realising that they were voting for her!
It has happened in the past.
When they targeted Ithana because she was a supporter of Geingob at an earlier congress, she was not even able to make it to the top 15 of the SPWC.
So Ithana being number one on the list could also only last until the next chance they get to vote. I think she knows this very well!