Jerekandje J. Amwaandangi
3 October 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
c) Encourage our communities to live a hygienic lifestyle irrespective of their levels in society especially with importance of constructing proper ablution facilities
Marching Towards Economic Development
Economic development is still and will remain a huge challenge to our nation. First and foremost, lack of skills among the majority of our citizens hampers the economic development of our country but at the same time, we need to put in place the right mechanisms and policies to stimulate internal economic growth.
We should always bear in mind that the destiny of our country is in our own hands and we should never fool ourselves that outsiders will develop our country. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves now and to the future generations to come to make sure that we do things right in order to create wealth which benefits every citizen of this beautiful country. Permanent wealth creation can only be achieved when we aim to build an economy based on innovation rather than a factor key or foreign direct investment based economy. To achieve this goal, we need to take some of the following points into consideration:
a) We should aim to establish at least one vocational training institution per political region specializing in different areas of studies such as crop farming, animal farming, food processing and packaging, leather processing, furniture and wood processing, solar manufacturing, etc. Existing vocational training institutions should be expanded in order to accommodate other fields of vocational studies. This will equip young people especially Grade 10 school leavers with practical skills to become successful entrepreneurs or to be employable in different types of manufacturing industries.
b) Our country should aim to have science and science-intensive industries as the core of the economy and key to maintain independent foreign policy, sovereignty and Namibia's position in the global world.
Therefore, the development of innovation through the creation of technology parks and support and promotion of small businesses engaged in science-intensive spheres should be strongly encouraged.
Technology parks should incorporate high-tech enterprises in such sectors as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and other kinds of technology as well as scientific research organizations, educational institutions providing staff for such enterprises, and other related ventures.
In this way, we will make sure that all novel ideas in the country will follow an established pattern from conception to commercial realization.
Comprehensive and balanced approaches to innovation, science and business partnerships, and the stimulation of business to develop innovations should be top priorities in this area. Personnel training, in particular youth training, is important for developing innovation because innovation is investment in people, in their education. Various venture capital funds should be established to develop this area.
c) Ownership and exploration of strategic resources such as minerals (diamonds, uranium, gold and oil and gas deposits) and fishing must be under majority state control for the government to maximize its income in order to fund economic developmental goals and establish a stabilization fund to accrue surplus revenue. The stabilization fund will then cushion the government budget in the event of economic plunge in sectors such as mining and fishing which currently are the backbone of our economy and the entire country and its population depend on these resources.
Empowerment of Previously Disadvantaged
The economic empowerment of previously disadvantaged majority groups of our people remains a big challenge. As much we have political independence, our economy is still in the hands of very few and a wealthy previously advantaged minority group. The challenging question is how can we distribute the economic wealth equitably among both groups of our citizens?
a) First foremost one of the policies we embraced after independence was the policy of national reconciliation. This policy was meant to work in the best interest of all citizens of this country not only on the political front but also socially and economically.
Our fellow white citizens need to share their creamy economic cake with fellow indigenous countrymen and women as a token of their appreciation of this precious policy of national reconciliation. Instead they are very protective of their economic interests such that they even make government wealth distribution goals very difficult to achieve, e.g land reform programme. Peace and stability we are enjoying today in our country can only be sustained if there is better life for everyone and therefore we need to share the economic wealth rather than being greedy and have little or nothing in future.
Reconciliation without transformation is unacceptable.
b) One of the building blocks of the society we live in is communities. We therefore should aim to empower communities more than individuals. Empowering communities will fast track poverty alleviation among the majority of our people because wealth will be shared broadly.
Community venture capital funds need to be established in order to finance share equities for community trust funds in successful establishments in key economic sectors such as tourism, fishing, mining, properties, etc.
c) The government's economic empowerment policy of the previously disadvantaged need to be broadened such that it will compel players in sectors such as tourism, mining, fishing and retailing to have meaningful indigenous shareholding especially rural community trusts. Our economic empowerment policy should also be horned to prioritize the previously disadvantaged groups to purchase prime land at very affordable prices.
Correcting past injustices should become government's top priority no matter how painful and unpopular it can be to some groups of our society.
Our people have sacrificed and endured suffering just for too long and it is highly unacceptable to continue to protect the interest of very few minorities at the cost of the masses.
Finally it is our collective dream, vision and servant leadership which will define our nation's destiny.
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