EDITORIAL

News that government is suspending the legal aid scheme which afforded accused persons lawyers to argue their criminal cases is another indictment that our country has hit rock bottom.

Just like the Public Service Employee Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS), the state legal aid scheme was another cash cow for unscrupulous elements whose only existence is premised on theft and greed.

So much is government’s brokenness that some of its decisions, such as suspending legal aid, now border on violating the supreme law of the land – our constitution.

This state of affairs came to a head as a result of years of accumulative negligence by our leaders and their trusted lieutenants in the government bureaucracy who watched on as thieves helped themselves to a cake meant for all Namibians.

We wasted resources on schemes such as Tipeeg, mass housing and others that were designed to suck the nation’s coffers dry, without evidence of what has truly been accomplished.

Government officials, including members of the executive, globetrotted willy-nilly and aimlessly to attend workshops that had no relevance to our country and its challenges.

Some of these schemes were stopped under the guise of realising wastage, but in truth, there was simply not a cent left to bankroll the ghost trips that clandestinely sustained the lives of these fat cats.

In the end, it is the common man, such as destitute inmates who cannot afford private lawyers, who takes the punch.