Kae Matundu Tjiparuro
It is budget time in Namibia. With all eyes and ears and, indeed, attention focussed and fixed on that single persona.
With many aspirations, hopes, expectations and anticipations. Rightly or wrongly. Oft with little assurance, as it has come to transpire over the years, let alone realisation of the various hopes, expectations and, if you wish, prayers. Not strange. For how can a whole country place so many expectations on a single individual? As if she/he were Ms and/or Mr Miracles and/or Ms/Mr Everything to all and sundry. Oblivious to the reality in which the country has been finding itself since independence. A distasteful and undesirable reality it has since been trying to wrestle itself free from. With little success. Not so much because of the inability and/or incompetence of the incumbent in charge at any given time of the state revenues.
That, for that matter, after no less than a hundred years of colonial plunder, has been veering not nearer to drying up; if not for most part, it has been akin to having completely dried up.
Since independence, our government has been wrestling with many socio-economic deficits. Many a time, but not all of the time, a legacy of capitalist colonialism. Meaning that the socio-economic ills the country has been wrestling with are an inheritance from the colonial capitalist past.
Anchored in colonial capitalist practices and policies. The fundamentals thereof have been the continued exploitation of the people. Thereby also their alienation from the productive process of the country. Whereby and by which the masses, including the peasants and workers, were and have been made rather tools of and in capitalist exploitation rather than being significant factors of production, thereby reaping fruits commensurate with their toil and labour. A process whereby, instead of being the owners of the means of production, they were and have been alienated and marginalised from it.
The question begging is whether the masses today are any different in Namibia. Not only this, but an attendant one is different from what? Are they within and operating in a different socio-economic environment and/or setting? Wherein their being is inherently generated, designed, rooted and structured fundamentally, more than anything, for exploitation in the name of profit. Solely derived for the exclusive benefit of the elites. With the masses thereby marginalised and alienated from it.
If this is the socio-economic system still prevalent in Namibia, then Yours Truly ideologically cannot but pose the question: what use is the budget? Especially in forever changing and transforming, let alone fundamentally improving the socio-economic wellbeing and welfare of those very much in need of such a radical change.
The fiscus being essentially more than anything an agent, if not of the kingpins of the status quo. This status quo being a capitalist system. To which the fiscus, as far as the masses, who, needless to say, are very much in need of a radical upliftment, are held hostage. Deliberately giving them starvation wages to keep them impoverished, thereby holding them hostage to the system. With the budget playing, through the so-called safety nets allocations, no more than an aiding and abetting role.
As administrator supreme of palliatives so far, that budget after budget, and marginally for that matter, has been able to dose the so-called marginalised with. Not as a means of care and magnanimity. But rather to ensure the system’s survival and as a cushion against probable social upheaval.
The 2026/2027 has been hailed as one for the social sector. Excluding the senior citizens definitely given the N$100 increase on their current allowance of N$1 600 per month. Indeed, beggars cannot be choosers, and many safety net beneficiaries would, in the current trying times socio-economically, appreciate any advance, however marginal.
But the harsh reality is that as long as the country’s budget is without any anchor to support it, from which to crawl before walking and eventually continue to stand on and lean on in both good and bad times, in turbulence and calmness, Namibia cannot hope for anything else but survival from incrementality in her fiscus. Because it has to balance many competing interests. To which the fiscus alone cannot find the necessary and much-desired balance. This anchor is nothing else but the SWAPO Party of Namibia and its government’s ideological vision and/or lack thereof. As, indeed, that of the entire country as much. Practically, there is no way at any given time the entire country can be expected to have a unison ideological vision. Yes, dogmatically, this may be a utopia. But the whole country, or a significant part thereof, has the requisite and relevant motive forces that can drive the desired change, having a uniform ideal if not ideology is a sine qua non.
In fact, Yours Truly ideologically cannot but postulate that the many seemingly insurmountable socio-economic ills it is and has been drowning in are partly because of a lack of an ideological vision. It goes without saying, whether in good and/or bad times, if any country lacks the necessary ideological disposition, which serves and can serve as an all-important anchor in all its doings, whatever it is doing, with good and/or bad intentions, shall ultimately render unproductive, if not altogether undesirable, results. After years of political freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination – call it what you would and/or may wish to call it – there’s no doubt that Namibia and/or the Swapo party government have been experimenting with one policy after another.
One politico-economic programme after another. Few of them, if any, have had any visible and tangible impact on the masses, including the workers. It is not so much because of a lack of implementation, let alone ineffective and inefficient implementation. Nor that the intention of the policies and/or politico-economic and social policies and programmes was and has not been good.
It is simply because of the mismatch between the policies and programmes and the political-economic system on the day. It is not a matter of conjecture and/or ideological regurgitation that egalitarianism is not and cannot be feasible in a pure capitalist dispensation such as the one currently operative in Namibia. Despite the mixed economy overture as per the Namibian Constitution. Needless to say, given this scenario, there is equally not much the budget can do. Because it is simply not supported by a conducive ideological environment. But instead, hindered and hamstrung. None other than essentially capitalism.
