EDITORIAL: Competence must no longer be optional in politics
It remains one of Namibia’s great ironies that nearly every job imaginable demands a qualification – except the one job with the power to determine whether your child has water, whether your neighbourhood is safe or whether your city thrives or collapses.
To be a nurse, you must study. To become a teacher, you must qualify. To drive a minister around, you must prove you can handle a vehicle. But to preside over the nation’s capital, you simply need a party card and perhaps a knack for singing campaign songs. The absurdity speaks for itself.
This ‘anyone can govern’ loophole has delivered us councillors who cannot read policy documents, representatives who cannot draft a coherent report, and office-bearers who treat public office as a social club rather than a fiduciary responsibility. Yet the nation expects these very individuals to understand procurement frameworks, navigate land management laws, debate infrastructure financing, or speak on climate resilience strategies.
We have created a political class for whom competence is optional and party loyalty is currency. A councillor may be illiterate, confused by policy language or incapable of interpreting a budget – yet entrusted with the fate of an entire city. That would be unthinkable in any other profession. No school would appoint an untrained teacher. No hospital would accept an uncertified surgeon. Why, then, should citizens accept a governance system run by chance rather than capacity?
Our lawmakers, the custodians of legislative balance, must stop pretending this free-for-all is sustainable. Public office must be professionalised. Entry requirements need not be exclusionary or elitist – but basic competence, comprehension and the ability to interpret policy cannot be negotiable. We cannot continue entrusting public monies, development planning and legal oversight to individuals whose qualification is merely surviving internal party politics.
To be a nurse, you must study. To become a teacher, you must qualify. To drive a minister around, you must prove you can handle a vehicle. But to preside over the nation’s capital, you simply need a party card and perhaps a knack for singing campaign songs. The absurdity speaks for itself.
This ‘anyone can govern’ loophole has delivered us councillors who cannot read policy documents, representatives who cannot draft a coherent report, and office-bearers who treat public office as a social club rather than a fiduciary responsibility. Yet the nation expects these very individuals to understand procurement frameworks, navigate land management laws, debate infrastructure financing, or speak on climate resilience strategies.
We have created a political class for whom competence is optional and party loyalty is currency. A councillor may be illiterate, confused by policy language or incapable of interpreting a budget – yet entrusted with the fate of an entire city. That would be unthinkable in any other profession. No school would appoint an untrained teacher. No hospital would accept an uncertified surgeon. Why, then, should citizens accept a governance system run by chance rather than capacity?
Our lawmakers, the custodians of legislative balance, must stop pretending this free-for-all is sustainable. Public office must be professionalised. Entry requirements need not be exclusionary or elitist – but basic competence, comprehension and the ability to interpret policy cannot be negotiable. We cannot continue entrusting public monies, development planning and legal oversight to individuals whose qualification is merely surviving internal party politics.
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