Expansionary Budget must translate into something

Agapitus Hausiku writes

THE National budget for 2011/12 has been tabled and is due for debate in Parliament. A lot has been said in praise and criticism. The Finance Minister is calling it an expansionary budget that will address the high unemployment rate in the country, at more than 50%, with the youth being the most affected. For the past three or so years, the same minister tabled budgets that she termed pro -poor pro-growth aimed at addressing the socioeconomic imbalances and inequalities that continue to characterise our economy.

In 2011 we are being given a new term “Expansionary” aimed at the surmountable rate of unemployment, a situation one would have expected to be addressed by the ‘pro-poor, pro-growth’ budgets. Little is therefore being said with regards to the successes and failures of the ‘pro-poor, pro-growth’ budgets in terms of their targeted deliverables projected when the budget was tabled. Three years or so down the line, we are faced with this social challenge - to take a holistic approach to reverse the unemployment figures.

Our population size vis-a-vis the wealth of the country and the disproportionate income distribution that characterises Namibia has continued irreversibly for the past twenty years with little redress. With a handful getting on the politico-economic bandwagon, feasting on the gains of both political and economic independence, the rest are mere voter tools ensuring that the political elite and their business protégé maintain their opulence life-styles. The budget we are told will create more than 100 000 jobs in the next three or so years.

Many people, myself included, are asking for specifics in terms of the type of jobs to be created. Many a times, companies have identified skills shortages, unemployability of some graduates from our tertiary institutions, the high drop-out rate from high school etc. amongst some of the reasons hampering the job market. Hence this group is the biggest portion of the unemployed who are targeted by the budget. Billions have been budgeted for, whether this will translate into directly benefiting the mass of unemployed Namibians in securing long-lasting and sustainable jobs, is too early to judge. We would want to see a situation where jobs are sustainably and broadly created but not as a shortterm measure simple because we are in an unemployment crisis.

The majority of our people, in particular the youth, are among a lost generation that has resorted to nothing but social immorality as a means of making a living in desperate times, requires immediate intervention to lead a dignified life. Human beings cannot live in absolute poverty in a country as rich as Namibia while millions go to waste or are unaccounted for. The approach in this budget is short-term, unsustainable and will continue to exclude a vast majority of our already desperate unemployed youth from redressing their skills deficiency to gain entry in the job market or start their own businesses, not shebeens, car washes, salons or taxi drivers.

We should also guard against cowboy tenderpreneurs who are business con-men sweat-talking politicians and board members to influence decisions in their favour in securing tenders that will only benefit a select elite group, with the majority of us only learning of these incidents of corruption and massabuse of public funds in the media. Dishing out money for capital projects in the construction industry is also not a solution. The trend has been that the majority of the companies within the industry are foreign with little knowhow of their Namibian co-owners. This approach has only benefitted unknown individuals with the majority of their workforce earning peasant salaries unable to support themselves and their families.

Priority must be given to training and equipping our people with the required skills for the job market that they are productive, employable, innovative and able to work for themselves and contribute to nation-building. We should not leave behind a generation of young people who were failed by the education system.

They are the elders of tomorrow if many haven’t already taken on an adult life, supporting households and facing all challenges. They are unemployable, they lack skills and it’s unjust for our fellow citizens to sit at the road-side waiting to be picked up to go and do garden work, many a times on an empty stomach in the scorching sun or drenching rain, having walked miles.

Thus this budget and allocation of funds must not be a political manifesto with all figures and fancy words translating into nothing like the previous budgets. The increase in allocation to tertiary institutions and for scholarships is commendable so that many young people aspiring to realise their dreams are afforded an opportunity to have access to tertiary education.

Let’s hope UNAM and Polytechnic will not bar students from sitting for their yearend exams due to non-payment of tuition fees. We hope the Ministry of Finance, other government ministries and agencies and the Namibian Government as a whole need to take a serious approach this time around. Stop coining names for budgets that translate into meaningless results at the end of the day.

You should mean what you say and deliver on your promises. Enough with riding on the ignorance and humility of the people.