By: Fransina Nghidengwa

Cabinet has officially approved and supports the transition of the Food Bank Programme to a conditional Basic Income Grant Cash transfer of N$600 per household per month for the existing 8,339 food bank beneficiaries.

The Basic Income Grant Coalition’s Rinaani Musutua says they appreciate the fact that the government has heard their call, as it is important for people to have the cash.

Speaking to The Villager Musutua said the people have a choice to decide what they need the most and there was previously the issue of people selling food they were receiving from the food bank and that was because there are many other things people need besides food.

“The person needs taxi money to go somewhere, need cash for a clinic visit, or giving people food in donations is kind of limiting their choices”, she said.

Musutua further called on government to expand the grant and convert it into a universal or unconditional basic income grant, arguing that currently a very small number of people are receiving the grant, which she says is about 2% of the population.

However she has argued that the N$600 that government has proposed is not enough.

“There is no politician or member of parliament that can survive on N$600 per month. I do not know why they say N$600 per month per household should be enough,” she said.

“Last year it was indicated that 1.5 million Namibians were starving and one cannot say it is only going to help 2% of the population and leave the rest of the people out and they continue to advocate the implementation of the universal basic income grant of N$600 for all Namibians aged 0-59.”

Musutua said food prices have tremendously been increasing, which means there is less that people can buy with N$600.

This week, it was reported that food and non-alcoholic beverages were the two main contributors to Namibia’s annual inflation rate increasing to 7.2% for February 2023.

“Around 2019, one could afford a combo of five items. With increasing prices, it is difficult to get the combo now at that price. With increased prices one cannot afford the combo sometimes. One can get the combo for N$499.99 but there are fewer items in the package now it is incredibly hard to survive on that grant per month,” she pointed out.

“It was reported that last year that there was a community of San people in Kavango that were unhappy with the cash grant. It was a very discriminatory programme. Some people were excluded from it even when neighbours would be living in the same condition. One family would be getting and the other neighbour not. That disenfranchises people or creates friction between neighbours,” she said.