Mr. Gert Jansen, Secretary-General of the RP, writes:
THE Republican Party of Namibia would like to respond to the awarding of bursaries to high level Swapo government officials as follows.
It was with great shock and dismay that the Republican Party of Namibia learned about identities of the recipients of the Chinese bursaries. We were always of the opinion that bursaries are awarded to first of all those members of the society who cannot afford to further their studies because of financial constraints and secondly to those students who, due to their academic performance, deserve such bursaries on merit.
Although we fully acknowledge the fact that it mostly remains the prerogative of the donors to decide to whom and for what reason they want to award bursaries, the current situation most definitely calls for a high level investigation.
Namibians have long since became accustomed to the arrogance of the Swapo government regarding the accepting of donations and gifts from so-called “friendly countries and organizations” and the reaction of the Swapo ministers.
Last week 3 of them at a media conference and today a double page add in the New Era, just once again confirms that this government just does not conform to the most basic requirements for a credible government!
Hon. Mbumba and all the other Swapo Government ministers have unfortunately not addressed the real issue and it is obvious that, as is frequently the case, they are trying to mislead the Namibian nation.
What the Hon. Minister referred to in his double page advertisement is what we expected from the government, because those funds were budgeted for with money from Namibian taxpayers and income from Namibia’s natural resources and we are proud to have our hard earned money spent on bursaries as explained by the Hon. Minister.
The issue here is the fact that the Chinese government made bursaries available, one would assume for those students whose families cannot afford to pay for their studies, but then the bursaries were allocated to amongst others the daughter of the President, the one person who most definitely should be able to afford to finance the education of not only his daughter, but a number of other students!
The Hon. Minister can carry on trying to defend the allocation of the Chinese bursaries as much as he wants, but what is wrong is wrong. One would have thought that “our culture”, and here we are referring to the Namibian culture, should have been developed by now to the level where especially those in positions of power should refrain from accepting “gifts” or anything else that could create a suspicion that it had something to do with a person’s position, rather than merit.
What happened here was outright disgusting and in any language unacceptable. The Swapo government should take note of the fact that the nation has long since became extremely suspicious of the eagerness and willingness of especially the “friendly” Chinese government to “invest” in the ruling Swapo party and other sectors in Namibia.
Rest assured, we are no fools and the time will come when the nation will pronounce itself in no uncertain terms on the Swapo government’s arrogance when it comes not only to allow unqualified and low class citizens from foreign “friendly countries” to settle in our country and to take away the jobs from our people.
Be warned that your “friends” are more interested to buy you off and it is already evident in the building industry as well as the mining industry.
The arrogance and total disrespect for the Namibian people by this Swapo government has never been demonstrated so clearly as now, by having dared to allow the families of top level government officials to accept the bursaries from the Chinese a few weeks before an election!
The Namibian nation has taken note.
