Reshuffle for whom?
Yesterday, citizens digested the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle, and returned to their daily battle of grinding out a living and feeding their families, amid an economic crunch that has the majority firmly clenched in its jaws.
Commentators and social media keyboard warriors are still having a field day, as arguments abound about whether the right person is now in the right cabinet portfolio and whether the fallout of last year’s Swapo congress has now finally abated.
For most, who is going to be delivering speeches and announcing projects as the representative of a certain ministry, matters not.
Those living in squalor and poverty do not care about fancy suits and shiny cars; they have battles that few Gucci revolutionaries can fathom.
Just this week, we have been running stories about communities were electricity infrastructure has not been delivered many years after promises were made. Like clockwork, communities share their stories of unfolding poverty and despair, as they wait with open hands for the fruits of independence to fall in their proximity, so they can also taste more than political freedom.
Last year, amid thousands of retrenchments, breadwinners were sent home, and household belts were tightened to unbearable levels.
The unemployment ranks were further swelled by those who failed Grade 10 and Grade 12 and their tertiary studies dismally, while politicians argued whether the country is broke or not.
These are the realities facing our people. They are hungry, desperate and pained.
Whatever the motives behind this week’s cabinet reshuffle, the outcome should now be that the government works harder to deliver to all citizens, especially the poorest of the poor.
In these times, any inkling of corruption, which robs the nation and by implication its people, of funds that should be securing a safety net for the poor and growing the economy to create jobs, must be dealt with, without fear or favour.
At just shy of 28, Namibia’s salad days are well and truly over. We can no longer afford a society where luxury cars cruise into villages and towns, filled with the poor and desperate, who are promised the world, and continue to eat dirt.
Commentators and social media keyboard warriors are still having a field day, as arguments abound about whether the right person is now in the right cabinet portfolio and whether the fallout of last year’s Swapo congress has now finally abated.
For most, who is going to be delivering speeches and announcing projects as the representative of a certain ministry, matters not.
Those living in squalor and poverty do not care about fancy suits and shiny cars; they have battles that few Gucci revolutionaries can fathom.
Just this week, we have been running stories about communities were electricity infrastructure has not been delivered many years after promises were made. Like clockwork, communities share their stories of unfolding poverty and despair, as they wait with open hands for the fruits of independence to fall in their proximity, so they can also taste more than political freedom.
Last year, amid thousands of retrenchments, breadwinners were sent home, and household belts were tightened to unbearable levels.
The unemployment ranks were further swelled by those who failed Grade 10 and Grade 12 and their tertiary studies dismally, while politicians argued whether the country is broke or not.
These are the realities facing our people. They are hungry, desperate and pained.
Whatever the motives behind this week’s cabinet reshuffle, the outcome should now be that the government works harder to deliver to all citizens, especially the poorest of the poor.
In these times, any inkling of corruption, which robs the nation and by implication its people, of funds that should be securing a safety net for the poor and growing the economy to create jobs, must be dealt with, without fear or favour.
At just shy of 28, Namibia’s salad days are well and truly over. We can no longer afford a society where luxury cars cruise into villages and towns, filled with the poor and desperate, who are promised the world, and continue to eat dirt.
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Namibian Sun
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