Editorial

25 Feb

Old Age Grants must be based on the cost of living

Editoriale Disability Grant in Namibia, Iipumbu Shiimi, Old Age Grants must be based on the cost of living

Adding N$100 to the monthly Old Age Grant and the Disability Grant in Namibia, making the amount received N$1,400, does not make this year’s budget, as recently announced by Iipumbu Shiimi, Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises, a pro-poor budget. Instead, it is a ‘fit-it-in-so-we-can-claim-we-are-doing-something’ budget when it comes to having social grants that fit the actual cost of living in Namibia. With the Parliament’s public viewing gallery full of pensioners and a warm-hearted story about Minister Shiimi’s conversation with a village pensioner in his opening statement, he set the mood for the presentation of a caring, sensitive, effective social…

Uutoni must fill the CoW vacuum

EditorialErastus Uutoni, Uutoni must fill the CoW vacuum

As in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. This is a well-known saying derived from one of Aristotle’s teachings. When considering the mess at the City of Windhoek (CoW), ironically expressed in the garbage recently thrown in the streets of our reasonably clean capitol city center, the persistent political vacuum at the City Municipal Building is roiling. Erastus Uutoni, Minister of Urban and Rural Development since March 2020, is the man in the political hot seat responsible for helping to craft and then manage a solution for the unfocused restlessness of the Windhoek City Council. However, it seems that instead of…