EDITORIAL: The real threat to national security lies within
IPC parliamentarian Aloysius Kangulu last week took to the National Assembly floor to sound the alarm over what he called a ‘threat to national security’ – a supposed crisis triggered by government’s decision to trim the defence ministry’s budget from N$7.494 billion to N$7.483 billion.
An N$11 million reduction, that’s it. In a country where the opposition has, for years, argued that the defence budget is bloated and unjustified in the absence of any war, this is hardly an act of sabotage. Rounded off, the ministry still enjoys N$7.4 billion – an astronomical sum by any measure.
But this is the silly season, and with elections only weeks away, everything is now a political football. Kangulu’s outcry, while dramatic, misses the point entirely. If the honourable member truly cared about threats to Namibia’s national security, he would focus his outrage not on a symbolic budget trim, but on the rot that has festered within the ministry itself.
Consider the scandals: N$8 million reportedly spent on a single car spare part. N$670 000 blown on repairing a genset later found to cost just N$11 651. These are not accounting errors – they are acts of economic treason. Every dollar looted from defence is a bullet removed from the nation’s ability to protect itself.
The real danger to Namibia’s security is not a budget adjustment – it is the unchecked corruption, the mismanagement and the arrogance that have turned parts of our security apparatus into personal cash dispensers.
Parliament’s silence on this front is deafening. Lawmakers who should be watchdogs have become lapdogs, turning a blind eye as millions disappear in plain sight. The time has come for our leaders to redefine what ‘national security’ really means – not guarding inflated budgets, but safeguarding the integrity of the institutions that protect us.
An N$11 million reduction, that’s it. In a country where the opposition has, for years, argued that the defence budget is bloated and unjustified in the absence of any war, this is hardly an act of sabotage. Rounded off, the ministry still enjoys N$7.4 billion – an astronomical sum by any measure.
But this is the silly season, and with elections only weeks away, everything is now a political football. Kangulu’s outcry, while dramatic, misses the point entirely. If the honourable member truly cared about threats to Namibia’s national security, he would focus his outrage not on a symbolic budget trim, but on the rot that has festered within the ministry itself.
Consider the scandals: N$8 million reportedly spent on a single car spare part. N$670 000 blown on repairing a genset later found to cost just N$11 651. These are not accounting errors – they are acts of economic treason. Every dollar looted from defence is a bullet removed from the nation’s ability to protect itself.
The real danger to Namibia’s security is not a budget adjustment – it is the unchecked corruption, the mismanagement and the arrogance that have turned parts of our security apparatus into personal cash dispensers.
Parliament’s silence on this front is deafening. Lawmakers who should be watchdogs have become lapdogs, turning a blind eye as millions disappear in plain sight. The time has come for our leaders to redefine what ‘national security’ really means – not guarding inflated budgets, but safeguarding the integrity of the institutions that protect us.
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Namibian Sun
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