Transparency is lip service
The authorities are quick to talk about ‘being for the people’ and the Namibian House has become quite the political term, right up there along with Harambee. Certain ministers often point out the importance of transparency and accountability, as listed in the Harambee Prosperity Plan.
Lip service we say.
Let us take for instance, the matter of the donkey abattoir being planned for Outjo. As we type this editor’s note, a meeting is underway in that town with authorities and experts from the United Kingdom. Photographs of high-level officials at that meeting have been shared and they are asleep. Those are the same high-level officials who do not supply answers to legitimate questions. Questions that have been sent repeatedly.
Every piece of real information sourced on the donkey abattoir saga has been offered by those who prefer to remain anonymous.
And so it is with most things in the country. Headline after headline in the media every day with no real answers to the questions posed. The right of reply that the media must ethically offer to those being accused has become nothing but a ‘he said, she said’ issue.
And when no answers are forthcoming from the direct powers that are involved, what is it that we and the public are supposed to think?
How on earth can land be cleared for an abattoir, a mixed abattoir slaughtering donkeys and cattle, when there has been no formal application to the meat authorities? There is no regulation for the export or sale of donkey meat. There is no NamLIT system to tag donkeys and there is no law that can say yes or no to such an abattoir.
And yet, no answers are forthcoming.
There is concern not only over the rights of these animals to not be slaughtered alive for the ‘medicinal value’ of their hides, there is concern over the country’s image, not only in Africa but across the world. Across the continent the commercial slaughter of donkeys has failed dismally and many countries have outright banned it.
But not Outjo. No, the council has allocated the land and cleared it.
Who stands to benefit from this operation and why can we not get any real answers?
Lip service we say.
Let us take for instance, the matter of the donkey abattoir being planned for Outjo. As we type this editor’s note, a meeting is underway in that town with authorities and experts from the United Kingdom. Photographs of high-level officials at that meeting have been shared and they are asleep. Those are the same high-level officials who do not supply answers to legitimate questions. Questions that have been sent repeatedly.
Every piece of real information sourced on the donkey abattoir saga has been offered by those who prefer to remain anonymous.
And so it is with most things in the country. Headline after headline in the media every day with no real answers to the questions posed. The right of reply that the media must ethically offer to those being accused has become nothing but a ‘he said, she said’ issue.
And when no answers are forthcoming from the direct powers that are involved, what is it that we and the public are supposed to think?
How on earth can land be cleared for an abattoir, a mixed abattoir slaughtering donkeys and cattle, when there has been no formal application to the meat authorities? There is no regulation for the export or sale of donkey meat. There is no NamLIT system to tag donkeys and there is no law that can say yes or no to such an abattoir.
And yet, no answers are forthcoming.
There is concern not only over the rights of these animals to not be slaughtered alive for the ‘medicinal value’ of their hides, there is concern over the country’s image, not only in Africa but across the world. Across the continent the commercial slaughter of donkeys has failed dismally and many countries have outright banned it.
But not Outjo. No, the council has allocated the land and cleared it.
Who stands to benefit from this operation and why can we not get any real answers?
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article