By: Kandjengo kaMkwaanyoka

The government, National Planning Commission, and Ministry of Finance have been signing various borrowing lines with European countries and now the USA.

On top of what they owe the IMF, European private creditors, China, Africa Development Bank, Germany, and then domestic creditors.

My thoughts are that we would not solve our economic stagnation, wealth inequality, and low level of value addition with the accumulation of debts – we won’t, we are just digging a deep hole.

I am tempted to call out our finance minister, one of the most educated public servants and with better know-how, the central bank with its team of well-educated researchers to sit down and assess the sustainability of our debt accumulation.

To put things in context, the government debt stock will increase from N$126.0 billion at the end of the FY 2021/22 to N$138.4 billion at the end of the 2022/23 fiscal year and is projected to reach N$155.1 billion or 66.2 percent of GDP by the end of MTEF period.

Our debt accumulation is moving at a faster pace than the real GDP – meaning the debts do not translate into new or more economic activities. Or perhaps the debt is being used for consumption or to invest in infrastructures that do not get to be utilised. For instance, we invested in a railway to the north until Oshikango that we do not use at a large scale at all except until Ondangwa, but occasionally.

The railway line from Ondangwa to Oshikango is now being used for photoshoots.

We are still struggling to utilise the Neckartal Dam and our new port of Walvis Bay Container Terminal is still underutilisation and we are going to lease it. The same as our airports beyond Hosea Kutako International Airport.

So my question then is: Should we continue investing in the infrastructures we do not use? Badly they are funded by other countries’ money?

Before I go to my suggested solution, let me give another example: the government borrowed some money from the African Development Bank for water infrastructure. One of that infrastructures is the 150-kilometre canal which will be reconstructed. Of this, 5.8 kilometres of work was done at a cost of N$69 million.

Let me highlight something. This canal passes through the Omusati region. The same region has been reported to be hit by hunger since 2013, and the Etunda Green Scheme that feeds on the canal has been the most useless green scheme in the country with more controversy than output.

More critically, how many medium to big horticulture or cereal grain producers do we have in Omusati now, despite the ever-flowing canal, which draws water from the 150 kilometres that stretches from Angola?

Beyond portable water to Oshakati and all other towns, how else are we utilising such investment to generate revenue to repay our loans, create employment, solve the food crisis and be more food self-sufficient?

Those are some of the examples of how we have been using our debts, and partially explain how debts are barely stimulating economic activities in the country.

 

SO NOW WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

A farmer prepares the soil first before he/she plants the seed. I think we did minimal to prepare ourselves on how to utilise the debts and, more importantly, the infrastructures we are building.

So, now we have billion-dollar infrastructure that is underutilised or lying dormant because we never planned or strategise on how those that are willing can utilise them to generate income for themselves. My solution is for us to stop looking outside for solutions and miracles and more debts.

Let us capacitate the southern people and various entrepreneurs to make use of Neckartal Dam, and grow food for themselves, the country and for export.

Let us restructure Transnamib to commercially  utilise all the railway lines and get the copper from Zambia to Dundee and for us to make solar panels here.

Along the canal, there are a lot of smallholder-producers struggling to produce- let us assess what they need and equip them to scale up.

Namport is leasing away the new terminal to some European company to run it. My question is: Did we conduct an assessment on Namport’s ability to run the terminal or how did we arrive at that decision?

We are exporting jobs and money just because we do not want to go through the process. So when will the Namibians learn to manage their resources and sweat the available assets?

We get the debts that are supposed to empower our people and get us working just to give the jobs (consultation) to Europeans and Chinese again.

We made DBN borrow the money from AfDB and gave it to the Italian who built the Neckartal  Dam, now we are milking the Namibians through levies to pay for the loan, which is the same thing with the oil storage.

We need to look within our community before we run outside. Let us build capacity, train, educate, and mentor them to do the work, so the borrowed money can be kept within the country.

No amount of debt will solve Namibian economic problems. No amount of debt will stimulate the country’s economic activities if the people do not have the know-how and readiness to take risks on a large scale. The solutions are within until we realise that, we will keep begging and borrowing money we will struggle to pay back later. gerastus16@gmail.com