Wezi Tjaronda
4 November 2008
The Namibia Economic Policy and Research Unit's comments on the BIG assessment report have ruffled the feathers of the Basic Income Grant Secretariat.
In its Quarterly Economic Review, the Namibia Economic Policy and Research Unit (Nepru) said the Otjivero community, on whom the N$100 grant per person is being piloted, is far from being poor taking into consideration the definition of poverty - people that spend more than 60 percent of their income on food.
The review disputed most of the coalition's findings relating to households, which reported an increase in spending on food, reduction in hunger, malnutrition, children that are now attending school and also a decrease in crime. The BIG Secretariat yesterday said Nepru's comments are an insult to the poor in Otjivero and demanded that the country's research organisation apologise not only to the Otjivero community but also to all Namibians.
"Nepru's statement that the people of Otjivero have not been and are not poor is a direct insult to them and in fact the majority of people in Namibia, who are still suffering under economic injustice and severe poverty," said Isaac Kaulinge, who read the secretariat's statement at a press conference yesterday.
He said Nepru's position on the BIG is biased and favours the rich and powerful while trampling on the poor.
Nepru's Principal Researcher and Advisor to Management, Dr Rigmar Ostekamp, said while the general stance of any economist would be sceptical, the ethics of the basic income grant are not fully established until to date. He queried the methodology used in the assessment saying it did not correspond with the standard methodology of the Namibia Household and Income Expenditure Survey.
Osterkamp said the assessment had some astonishing findings such as the savings the households are making and the high expenditure they ware making on food.
He also wondered whether giving everyone in the community N$100 is the best way to spend the almost N$100000 every month.
"Is it the best way to spend N$100000 for poverty alleviation on Otjivero or are there other alternatives?" he wondered.
Some of the alternatives Osterkamp suggested are employing more social workers, providing free food to schools, employing extension workers to advise the community on how to grow vegetables and to provide subsidies for micro-credit schemes.
Labour Research and Resource Institute (LaRRI) Researcher, Herbert Jauch, said looking back at the alternatives the Government has put in place to address poverty over the past 18 years the Basic Income Grant might as well be the answer.
He said the BIG has demonstrated that there is a way of dealing with the debilitating and brutal poverty in Otjivero.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia'a co-director of the desk for social development, Claudia Haarmann, said the coalition wanted a critical analysis of the BIG assessment and nothing else and did not welcome Nepru's comments.
"The people of Otjivero are trying very hard to make the project work and they feel trampled on," she said.
The assessment said a thorough assessment was needed to determine whether BIG was the cheapest option to reduce poverty and improve health and education.
Other participants to the debate generally welcomed the grant as a means of enabling the people of Otjivero to live a decent life.
Nepru's acting director, Klaus Schade, said the review was not meant to discredit the BIG and applauded the secretariat for introducing the idea. He said Nepru was aware of the extent of poverty in Namibia and has always called for an increase in social grants to the poor.
Schade said the research organisation's report was to stimulate debate for it to go beyond reports in the media.
An assessment done six months after the implementation of the pilot project found that malnutrition among under-five children in the Otjivero settlement dropped, small enterprises sprung up, more parents paid school fees for their children while people living with HIV and AIDS can take their anti retroviral drugs every month because they have food on the table.
According to the assessment, the number of malnourished children dropped from 42 percent to 17 percent while the level of reported crime especially poverty-related crime dropped by over 20 percent since the introduction of BIG.
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