Windhoek — THE National Budget is a realistic, visionary and "pro" resolving of social ills to a nation praying for deliverance.

This is the view of Dr Abraham Iyambo, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, the first ruling party member to have taken part in the Appropriation Bill debate.

"We are fighting an economic development war on behalf of the nation and solutions will only be delivered by all of us working together. Thus, the economic destiny, survival and well-being of the nation are in our hands," said Iyambo poetically when he addressed the House.

He said the budget of N$38.8 billion is a pro-poor, pro-jobs, pro-food production, pro-poverty alleviation, pro-health and pro-economic growth.

"There is an inventory of a multiplicity of profound ills encompassing our nation. We will fight these ills with scarce finances as prudently allocated. We must prioritise as called for by the budget to relieve our people from the claws of unemployment, grave diseases, the shortage of housing and crime. Yes, our duty is to extricate Namibia from these hampering shackles and tormenting miseries," he vowed.

He said: "The budget is visionary. The bigger picture is that no Namibian should be perpetually condemned to squalid conditions; no inch of the country should be a fountain of misery that we may be ashamed and sickened of, as we fear to witness the repulsive reality of dimming indignities and no face of a Namibian should be a thickened sense of despair."

According to Iyambo, the budget advocates permanent solutions.

"The roots, seeds and causes of depressing poverty should be attacked, weeded out and obliterated.

However, providing relief to the destitute should not be addictive. We should find workable ideas to create jobs for our people and Namibian financial institutions should assist the government in this," Iyambo, who recognised that the budget acknowledges the dynamics of world events, said.

"We are influenced by world events. Our mining, fisheries, textile and agricultural products are not insulated from global effects. We should stimulate productivity and we should boost private, public and foreign investment to accelerate economic growth. I am also happy that the budget proposes the attention on new strategic productive investments," he asserted.

Iyambo admitted that the country's economic growth is presently at an agonizing tortoise pace.

"It is an unvarnished truth that technology is an important determinant catalyst to ignite and propel super-active economic growth. The smaller our economy remains, the more susceptible, brittle and precarious to internal and external shocks. In order to ensure economic growth, we should entrench institutional quality by rewarding institutions that are productive and creative, and punish those in disarray," he suggested to the House.

He urged the country to find a cure for the existing unhealthy relations between trade unions and business.

"Negotiating acumen should be developed to ensure industrial peace in the country. The preponderance of the tug-of-war on labour issues is an economic catastrophe. The workers and the country suffocate in the dust in the absence of healthy communication. Regarding farm labourers, they are dehumanised, their dignity trampled under feet. The reservoir of patience of the landless in the country is running out," he warned.