On 21 March 2000, Namibia celebrates it’s tenth independence anniversary. As we look back at this first decade of independence after many decades of apartheid colonialism, we are proud that the government has made enormous strides in improving the quality of life of the citizens through its social and economic programmes. As we embark upon the second decade of the country’s independence in the new millennium, it is only appropriate that we stand back and take stock of what we as a nation have achieved, what challenges we face, and where we want Namibia to go during the next decade.
Our successes and our failures need to be seen in the context of our vision which was articulated by the President at the beginning of 1999 – Our vision aims at making Namibia an industrialised state by the year 2030. An essential corollary of this vision is significant improvement in the quality of life of all Namibians. In fact, the government has seen this corollary as its raison d’etre.
We started with a fragmented society where access to every facility and every opportunity, in fact, a person’s very existence, depended on the colour of their skin, on their ethnicity, on their gender, and on their political affiliation. As a consequence, majority of the population was marginalised. Legally, such stratification was done away with with the adoption of the Constitution, but a great deal of work needed to be done to correct the wrongs of the past, and to bring the marginalised and the dispossessed into the mainstream of the nation’s social, economic and political life.
During the first decade of the country’s independence, the government created structures, laid down policy, and initiated programmes to address these very issues. Consequently, significant successes have been achieved.
The country’s transition to independence was made possible through long years of struggle that in its wake had left a great deal of hatred and mistrust between different racial and ethnic communities. To help people overcome the century old hatred and mistrust, we adopted a policy of reconciliation that was considered to be the only realistic policy for cultivating a national ethos in a society that was for over a century racially and ethnically stratified. Ten years later, we are pleased that racial and ethnic hatred is fast disappearing and a unified nation of diverse societies is evolving.
Over the past decade, democracy has strengthened considerably. We have held presidential, National Assembly, regional government, and local government elections at regular intervals. These elections, declared and recognised as free and fair, have been conducted by Namibians themselves. As the last presidential and National Assembly elections showed, citizens’ participation and interest in this democratic exercise has continued.
During the early years of the decade, we also concentrated on transforming our public service for making it responsive to the needs of the people, and conducive to the new realities of freedom and democracy. Within the government, new regional and local governments were created to bring the government closer to the people. However, in the realisation that there is unequal economic development in the regions and their ability to generate their own revenue is extremely restricted, we decided that regional participation in developmental efforts should be staggered with gradually increasing the number of activities of the central government for decentralisation.
Initiatives are also in place for enhancing our competencies through the use of information and communication technologies. Individual government offices, ministries and agencies are already using computers for various tasks, such as, internal budgeting, communication, payments processing, procurements, archiving, and planning. Various offices, ministries and agencies are now busy integrating the content to make information and communication technology an effective management tool. In fact, the government’s intranet already makes a number of databases accessible to authorized persons.
Two years ago, we had adopted a vision for Namibia, Vision 2030, to transform Namibia into an industrialised country by the year 2030, with concomitant improvement in the quality of life of every citizen. For making progress in our march towards this vision, we would need to meet successfully a number of strategic challenges as follows:
1. Strengthening of democracy in all aspects,
2. Building a diversified, robust, and dynamic economy,
3. Establishing an economically prosperous and just society,
4. Reducing unemployment significantly,
5. Improving old age pensions,
6. Resolving the land question,
7. Providing quality services to all, including health, education, electricity, water, and housing,
8. Improving the nutritional status of citizens,
9. Proactively seeking innovative solutions to address the problem of HIV/AIDS infections,
10. Establishing a moral and ethical society where violence, drunkenness, crime, corruption, and nepotism are anathema
Last ten years’ achievements have already given us a head start. These achievements of different offices, ministries, and agencies are enumerated in this book, but it would not be out of place for me to highlight some of them.
During the last ten years, we have attempted to create a strong, value driven society, and a public service culture that is imbued with commitment to service, integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness. Our actions are increasingly being driven by a commitment to giving the citizens value for money, and making sure that the government spending is also a function of value for money.
Namibia is generally not a corrupt society. However, sometimes perceptions are created in some circles questioning the integrity of the public service. Though perceptions are not based on any fact, they should not be ignored. With this in view, we have worked for the past two years to put in place mechanisms for countering any corruption. This year, legislation for countering corruption should also become a part of the statute books. This law will require all public service staff members, including political officer bearers, to declare their assets annually. To give teeth to this initiative, the legislation would provide for the creation of an independent body.
To emancipate the majority of Namibians from poor quality of life, we have, over the past ten years, emphasised social spending. Every year, some 40% of our national budget is spent on education and health. This level of spending is likely to continue to equip our schools and teachers better, to overcome teacher shortage, to reduce school dropout rates, and to expand educational opportunities to increasing number of pupils at all levels. In the health sector, new clinics and hospitals have been build but many still need to be built, immunisation campaigns have ensured wider coverage. Consequently, infant, child and maternal mortality rates have fallen. Spread of HIV/AIDS at an unprecedented speed has, however, put paid to all the gains we had made.
One serious matter of concern where we have not made headway is the high level of unemployment amongst the youth. Employment is not only essential for families to survive but is also essential for promoting self-worth. Unemployment, on the other hand, results in a host of negative consequences, such as, criminality, lack of self-worth, and strain on peace and tranquillity. That is why the government could not ignore the plight of the demobilised fighters, and that is why we cannot relent in our effort to do whatever it takes to create jobs.
Land reform can certainly contribute to this effort. Consequently, we have been spending some N$20 million annually for acquiring land to resettle the landless and the dispossessed, but this effort is small compared with the size of the problem. Further, old age pensions help alleviate the burden of families somewhat, and we hope to make some improvement in this area in the next budget.
Success of all the values we cherish, peace, human rights, and democracy, depends on our ability to deliver goods. At practical level, our ability to deliver goods depends largely on the strength of our economy. While we have not done so bad in macroeconomic terms, we need to do a great deal more. For instance, real GDP growth at constant 1990 prices during the decade prior to independence averaged 1% per annum. Our GDP in the decade of the nineties, on the other hand, grew by an average of 3.5% annually.
Fiscally, the government has been running a tight ship. Our debt, and our deficits are at manageable levels. For instance, our domestic public debt is about 20% of our GDP and our external public debt is a little over 3% of GDP. Our fiscal performance has been rather good and financial institutions are more than willing to extend to us loans. Our position, however, is that we prefer not to borrow, and if we must, we should borrow locally, and for productive projects instead of for consumption.
We have also tried to diversify our economy. Already, we have attracted considerable investment in fisheries, both on shore and off shore, tourism, mining, energy, and manufactures.
During the first decade of the country’s independence, not only has viability of fisheries been restored, we have also put in place three key strategies in fisheries policy, namely, stock rebuilding, Namibianisation and empowerment. Success of this initiative is best illustrated by the fact that value of fish production went up from N$500 million in 1991 to over N$2200 million in 1998, and fisheries contribution to GDP increased from 5.0% in 1991 to 10.1% in 1998. Further, of the 141 businesses or individuals currently holding rights for fishing in Namibia, 138 are majority controlled by Namibians.
Namibia is known for its diversity of minerals, including base and rare metals and non-metals, precious and semi-precious stones, and precious metals. Overall, mining output at constant 1990 prices rose by 23.8% over the period 1990-98. However, with the exception of diamond mining, the performance of the sector has been somewhat lacklustre and the sector has not succeeded in creating many jobs.
Energy consumption is an important economic development indicator, and Namibia’s energy consumption is quite high. Within the SADC region, per capita energy consumption in Namibia is the third highest, after South Africa and Zimbabwe. Since 1990, major expansion of electricity transmission and distribution networks has taken place to provide electricity to increasing number of people and industries. Offshore, exploration for oil and gas also continues, and estimates for Kudu gas reserves have been upgraded from three to twenty trillion cubic feet.
The last decade has seen considerable emphasis on manufacturing. The President, the Minister of Trade and Industry, other ministers from economic ministries, and I, as the Prime Minister, have worked relentlessly to attract the interest of investors in Namibia. Generally, we have worked to promote manufacturing on four fronts, viz., investment promotion, facilitating manufacturing activity, promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, and growth and diversification of Namibia's exports.
In order to promote investment by both local and foreign investors, a number of incentives are being offered. Further, the government has established a number of export processing zones and has taken a number of initiatives, such as, the establishment of industrial parks, common services, and credit guarantee schemes, to promote small and medium-scale enterprises. We are also very pleased that The Africa Competitiveness Report ranks Namibia as the second most competitive country in sub-Saharan Africa after Botswana.
Tourism is another important sector vis a vis its contribution to the economy and its ability to create jobs. Already, it is the third highest contributor to the country’s GDP after agriculture and fisheries. It is also one of the most prolific job creators. It is estimated that in 1992 over 10 000 persons were directly employed in tourism, and now, in the past eight years, this number has doubled. The World Tourism Organisation has forecast that by the year 2020 Namibia could receive more than two million tourists. These numbers, if realised should help us create another 50 000 jobs in the sector. It is therefore incumbent upon us to ensure that Namibia remains a peaceful country where tourists can feel secure as they enjoy our wide open spaces, diverse ecology, and excellent game parks.
In the international arena, we have tried to build bridges between parties to conflict, we have sought to strengthen relations with our neighbours, and we have not heisted in playing our role in United Nations and SADC initiatives. It is therefore no accident that Namibia’s role in regional and global affairs has been applauded in various capitals around the world. Indeed, Namibia has made significant advances in the realm of multilateralism. We are proud that our country was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the period 1999-2000. The two most important issues which Namibia brought before the Security Council were the humanitarian situation in Angola, and children in armed conflict. We can also be proud that our Minister of Foreign Affairs assumed the Presidency of the Fifty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Our sportsmen and women and other achievers, too, have done a great deal to make Namibia stand out in the community of nations. Names, such as, Frank Fredericks, Mohamed Ouseb, Harry Simon, Elizabeth Mongudhi, Lucket Swartbooi and Michelle McLean are today well-known. In addition, our National Rugby Team made it to the World Cup and our National Soccer Team made it to the Africa Cup of Nations.
In the last ten years, we have achieved a great deal. Democracy has been strengthened. Reconciliation has minimised the hatreds of the past. Education, health and other services have been expanded to areas where none existed before. Market economy has been promoted. Reasonable growth rates have been achieved. Debt levels have been maintained at levels that are easily manageable.
The new decade is full of promise and challenge – promise because new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, offer us hope that in the new economy we can find our niche and thus make a quantum leap towards improving the quality of lives of people; and challenge, because we still have a great deal to achieve before we are able to concretise our vision. We, as Namibians can be proud of many success stories but we face numerous conventional challenges that must be addressed. These include the addressing of the land question, creation of jobs, countering HIV/AIDS epidemic, and improving security. However, we have the necessary will to meet the challenges of the future with confidence.
Hage G. Geingob
Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia