Reduce the public service
Never before has the case for the reduction in the number of civil servants been stronger. Ideas were thrown around about reducing the size of our very bloated public sector by reducing the retirement age to 55. Nothing has come of this thus far.
The State made a grievous mistake by using the civil service as a job creator.
But, what is done is done and remedies now have to be applied.
We are seeing budget cuts everywhere. Our hospitals are grossly understocked, to the degree where doctors have complained and threatened slow-downs and outright strikes, if the situation does not improve.
We have lofty goals to combat poaching with units that have yet to be established. The process is bogged down because once again, there is no money. The protection of our wildlife is not something that should be placed on the backburner at all, but it is.
Education suffers too and subsidies have been cut, with some schools receiving nothing for the 2017 school year and so, someone else has to foot that bill.
School-feeding programmes is a distant memory at some schools and we are not able to provide free sanitary towels to our menstruating school girls. But condoms are freely available.
Now we see that even the upgrading of our rails has been halted due to a lack of funds.
As it is stands, the Roads Authority needs 30 million euro and will soon toll our roads to balance the books so we can nary afford to ignore critical rail infrastructure to remove so many of the trucks on our roads.
Water infrastructure is falling apart, especially in the north and many boreholes are idle while communities have to climb into dangerous wells to collect saline water.
Our young women, ready to birth, still do not have adequate shelter for the sometimes weeks they have to be close to the hospital before they go into labour.
But do we see budget cuts for staff? Advisors? Assistants?
No.
Where our government thinks it can secure more money, if not from its own coffers, we do not know. We do know that if we keep on making debt, we are in trouble.
The State made a grievous mistake by using the civil service as a job creator.
But, what is done is done and remedies now have to be applied.
We are seeing budget cuts everywhere. Our hospitals are grossly understocked, to the degree where doctors have complained and threatened slow-downs and outright strikes, if the situation does not improve.
We have lofty goals to combat poaching with units that have yet to be established. The process is bogged down because once again, there is no money. The protection of our wildlife is not something that should be placed on the backburner at all, but it is.
Education suffers too and subsidies have been cut, with some schools receiving nothing for the 2017 school year and so, someone else has to foot that bill.
School-feeding programmes is a distant memory at some schools and we are not able to provide free sanitary towels to our menstruating school girls. But condoms are freely available.
Now we see that even the upgrading of our rails has been halted due to a lack of funds.
As it is stands, the Roads Authority needs 30 million euro and will soon toll our roads to balance the books so we can nary afford to ignore critical rail infrastructure to remove so many of the trucks on our roads.
Water infrastructure is falling apart, especially in the north and many boreholes are idle while communities have to climb into dangerous wells to collect saline water.
Our young women, ready to birth, still do not have adequate shelter for the sometimes weeks they have to be close to the hospital before they go into labour.
But do we see budget cuts for staff? Advisors? Assistants?
No.
Where our government thinks it can secure more money, if not from its own coffers, we do not know. We do know that if we keep on making debt, we are in trouble.
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article