A public reflection on Namibia’s governance week
PAUL T. SHIPALE (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
Every system of governance that is born without clarity about the role of each actor creates a silent war within the state. That war makes no noise, but it paralyses the country.
As Namibia formally opens the three arms of the state, namely the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, for the 2026 working year, the moment calls for more than constitutional observance. It calls for reflection.
Not only by leaders, but by citizens as well. A fundamental question must be asked: how present is the state in the daily lives of the people it governs?
Governance Week is rich in ceremony processions, protocols, and speeches reaffirming democratic order. This year was no exception, marked by a guard of honour, a military parade, a 21-gun salute, and a solemn moment of silence observed by the president in honour of the founding president of Namibia, Dr Sam Nujoma and the third president of Namibia, Dr Hage Geingob, who passed away on the 4th and the 8th of February a year apart, respectively; these gestures remind the nation of continuity, sacrifice, and historical responsibility.
Yet behind the pomp and symbolism lies a more urgent inquiry: are our institutions opening themselves to the people, or merely opening another year for themselves?
Trust is not produced by ritual. It is earned where it is felt in functioning clinics, responsive public offices, safe streets, accessible courts, and reliable services. Governance Week, therefore, should be measured less by speeches and more by whether citizens can see, touch, and experience government in ways that matter.
Clarity of roles: the silent crisis of governance
Namibia, like many young democracies with strong institutional ambitions, does not suffer from a lack of good intentions or eloquent speeches. Its deeper challenge is confusion of roles.
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s address at the official opening of Cabinet for the 2026 calendar year was, by all accounts, polished, optimistic, and rhetorically disciplined. It emphasised unity, commitment, and the high expectations Namibians hold for their leaders. It acknowledged achievements, highlighted ongoing initiatives, and called for renewed focus as the administration advances toward Vision 2030.
Notably, the President also urged the Eighth Parliament to understand that when she calls upon legislators to pass laws, it is not a witch-hunt but rather a reminder of their constitutional duty and a necessary step toward restoring public confidence in the country’s institutions. The message was clear: lawmaking is not an act of political hostility but a democratic obligation.
Yet, for all its moral gravitas, the address also reflected a recurring challenge in Namibian political discourse: ambition often unaccompanied by concrete operational clarity.
We concur with the editorial view of the Windhoek Observer that Namibians deserve more than vague assurances. They deserve clarity on anticipated hurdles, mechanisms for redress, and measurable benchmarks by which effectiveness can be judged. Ambition alone cannot substitute for accountability.
Governance functions best when responsibilities are clearly defined and respected:
• The political leader is the visionary – Political leaders articulate national direction. They speak of prosperity, inclusion, and sovereignty. They live in tomorrow more than today, and that is legitimate, provided they do not attempt to govern as managers.
• The public manager is the organiser – public managers translate vision into systems. They work through processes, rules, indicators, budgets, and timelines. They ensure continuity when political momentum shifts elsewhere.
• The technician is the executor – technicians, civil servants, professionals, and specialists know how work is done. Without them, vision remains paper-deep. But when technicians begin to define political direction, institutional coherence collapses.
The formula is simple:
• Political leaders set direction.
• Public managers organise the system.
• Technicians execute with competence.
All are essential. All coexist within the state.
The crisis begins when no one clearly defines who leads what and why.
The results are familiar:
• Public policies designed as slogans.
• Programs executed without strategic coherence.
• Technical decisions blocked by political interests.
• A state that works hard, yet moves slowly.
Governing is not about doing everything. It is about knowing what to do and what not to do. Without clarity of roles, limits of power, and real accountability, reform stalls, public trust erodes, and sustainable growth remains elusive. Vision without management becomes illusion.
Management without execution becomes bureaucracy. Execution without direction becomes waste.
This leads to an uncomfortable but necessary public question. In Namibian governance, who is in charge of what and why?
The executive: when plans meet daily life
Cabinet openings signal intention, urgency, and policy direction. Yet for many Namibians, trust is shaped not by plans, but by results.
Policies may be well designed, but service delivery remains uneven. Employment opportunities arrive slowly. Economic relief reaches too few, too late. In such moments, legal citizenship exists, but social citizenship, the lived experience of belonging, feels distant.
Trust grows when:
• promises translate into action,
• accountability is visible, and
• government urgency mirrors the urgency of the unemployed graduate, the overworked nurse, or the parent balancing school fees and rent.
Until that alignment is achieved, the gap between state ambition and daily reality will continue to define public perception.
Parliament: representation that is felt, not just seen
Parliament embodies political citizenship in its most visible form. The ceremonial official opening of the third session of the Eighth Parliament, under the theme “Enhancing the role of Parliament for inclusive development and participatory democracy”, reaffirms democratic ideals.
Yet for many citizens, representation fades once speeches end. Voices are heard during campaigns, but oversight and engagement often become intermittent. Debates may be robust in form, yet disconnected from classrooms, hospitals, markets, and workplaces.
While the President’s call for legislative urgency is constitutionally valid, it must coexist with full respect for Parliament’s independence. Lawmaking cannot be effective if legislators feel pressured rather than empowered. Let us hope the Executive will respect the constitutional role of the Legislature as an equal arm of the State and not dictate to the Speaker how to do her job.
A Parliament that listens beyond elections, translates lived experience into law, confronts power when necessary and ensures that governance is not merely observed but felt.
The judiciary: rights that can be reached
The judiciary commands respect, and rightly so. Yet trust depends not only on doctrine but also on accessibility.
Slow procedures, high costs, and distant courts risk turning rights into abstractions. Independence is essential, but independence alone does not make justice real for citizens waiting months or years for resolution.
Justice must be reachable, understandable, and timely experienced as protection, not symbolism. When those in the judiciary threaten those in the executive branch of the government or seek to hide behind them, that is corrupting the entire system of governance and an overlapping of the functions of the state.
Trust as a shared responsibility
No single branch of government builds trust alone. It emerges when:
• The executive delivers reliably.
• Parliament represents courageously and consistently, and
• The judiciary safeguards rights visibly and accessibly.
Mistrust is rarely sudden. It is learnt through repeated encounters with systems that feel distant, opaque, or indifferent.
Governance Week, therefore, is more than an opening. It is an opportunity to restore the social content of citizenship to narrow the gap between legal rights and lived reality.
From ceremony to credibility
The ceremonies of Governance Week will pass. What will remain are the classrooms, clinics, offices, queues, and courts where citizenship is lived.
Namibia’s democracy does not reside in buildings or rituals. It lives in the confidence of its people, the quiet measure of whether the State is present, responsive, and accountable in everyday life.
The State is now open. The deeper question is whether leadership is ready to meet the people where they live, work, and hope.
Trust, once earned through action, lasts far longer than ceremony.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They are solely our personal views as citizens and pan-Africanists.
