A desperate need for engagement and action
It is late in the day and we need to engage immediately, take action, and come up with an alternative to the stagnant economic growth or development that manifests itself in our current situation of unemployment and crime, accompanied by the excess of social problems.
The Private sector needs to engage Government, propose, make suggestions, and be proactive as opposed to the norm of being re active.
What about a compulsory 1% of all capital projects to be spend on a “social upliftment” project? What if it is made tax deductible for instance? Why not put your “own people” in on a PPP project, to audit/ oversee your part of the investment. (It is called a “partnership” after all.) Let it count towards your “empowerment points?”
Come to think about it, it is actually a no brainer - if there is no employment, economic activity, skills development and all the rest of it, there will be no future income and business. It is a way of hedging your own future revenue streams. If you engage and get involved by yourself, there is no need for government to introduce legislation and you could control/drive the process, as opposed to being dictated to, like with legislation.
If we were able to come up with something like the grandiose plans for an EPZ in the 90's, some of which is still yielding good results locally today, in one form or another, surely we can come up with a workable proposal to entice and involve relevant parties into something much more current and desperately needed.
It is not going to be easy but it has got to be done. The time for niceties and avoiding the real, often painful issues, has past. We have to listen to and act on the courage of our conviction. We are in this together - all passengers on the same ship. If the one part goes down, the other will inevitably follow and there will be nothing left, for anybody.
The Private sector needs to engage Government, propose, make suggestions, and be proactive as opposed to the norm of being re active.
What about a compulsory 1% of all capital projects to be spend on a “social upliftment” project? What if it is made tax deductible for instance? Why not put your “own people” in on a PPP project, to audit/ oversee your part of the investment. (It is called a “partnership” after all.) Let it count towards your “empowerment points?”
Come to think about it, it is actually a no brainer - if there is no employment, economic activity, skills development and all the rest of it, there will be no future income and business. It is a way of hedging your own future revenue streams. If you engage and get involved by yourself, there is no need for government to introduce legislation and you could control/drive the process, as opposed to being dictated to, like with legislation.
If we were able to come up with something like the grandiose plans for an EPZ in the 90's, some of which is still yielding good results locally today, in one form or another, surely we can come up with a workable proposal to entice and involve relevant parties into something much more current and desperately needed.
It is not going to be easy but it has got to be done. The time for niceties and avoiding the real, often painful issues, has past. We have to listen to and act on the courage of our conviction. We are in this together - all passengers on the same ship. If the one part goes down, the other will inevitably follow and there will be nothing left, for anybody.
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Namibian Sun
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