Youth still being groomed - Geingob

President Hage Geingob says he is not opposed to appointing younger people to serve in his Cabinet and maintains that throughout his professional life, he has been instrumental in training many current leaders while they were still young.Geingob was asked whether grooming was being conducted to transfer skills to younger people from older leaders. This happened after his announcement that Vice-President Nangolo Mbumba, together with Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and Deputy PM Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, would retain their positions in his new Cabinet, which will serve for the next five years.The top four, as the president prefers to call his closest colleagues, have an average age of 69. Geingob and Mbumba are both currently aged 78, while Nandi-Ndaitwah is 67 and a younger Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is 52.Recalling his ascendancy to the presidency, Geingob said that he only became president at an advanced age.“President Nujoma was a young man when he became a freedom fighter. I was very young too; young until recently. I became prime minister when I was only 48, after a long struggle.”According to Geingob, the current prime minister started her career in government at a relatively young age and the same is true for environment minister Pohamba Shifeta and urban and rural development minister Peya Mushelenga.“People like Comrade Prime Minister was only 28 when she was appointed the director of the National Planning Commission; Peya and them… young fellas, Shifeta and them… young fellas, though some of them were out studying. There were young people so we groom young people.“You see these people were there, back-benchers, they became ministers, deputy ministers first, some of them. So, you just want the youth to go and jump and grab people to become prime minister? How would you do that if you were in my position?”Geingob said his grooming days started back when he was still the director of the United Nations Institute of Namibia in Lusaka, Zambia, when Swapo was in exile.“I used to be a director of the [United Nations] Institute of Namibia. I used to have the youth there, grooming them, staying with them, eating with them, dancing with them. We are the ones who groom the youth. Even now we live with the youth,” he said.Geingob added that this practice followed him during his first stint as prime minister from 1990.“This question about the youth and me in my case, I had as prime minister in my office only appointed young people, it was called the kindergarten. All of these guys, [Alfredo] Hengari, [Stanley] Simataa, not from exile, I just saw people like Simataa on television and asked who is that fella, he sounds good. I had Sacky [Shanghala], he came from university. I appointed him; he was the youngest in my office.“I didn't know these people at all, Mathe, Shiimi, its young boys I picked up as [prime] minister in my office, KK [Kazenambo Kazenambo] and them, I brought them up.” OGONE TLHAGE

Youth still being groomed - Geingob

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Namibian Sun 2025-12-16

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Youth still being groomed - Geingob

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Namibian Sun 2025-12-16

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