Namibia: The land where you buy back your own life (Part 2)

// MK testing tag

FLUITJIEBLASER WRITES:

WHERE IS THE BRAKE?

Private schooling is basically unaffordable. Private healthcare is unaffordable. Insurance is unaffordable. Legal services are unaffordable. Bank charges keep biting. Mobile services cost money. They even have the audacity of making your airtime vanish without explanation.

Municipal services cost money. Electricity costs money. Water costs money. Transport costs money. There seems to be a charge attached to almost every aspect of existence. And where are the effective brakes? It feels as though a cat has been let loose in a chicken coop. Everyone is grabbing what they can. The tragedy is that ordinary Namibians have become so accustomed to these wounds that many no longer even complain. We simply adjust. We cut another expense. We borrow and get trapped in debt. Many get trapped in gambling in an attempt to escape the debt. We go without. We make another plan. We compete with one another for the scraps. And slowly, quietly, our dignity is stripped away. No wonder Namibia is ranked as one of the most alcohol consuming countries per capita and the unhappiest nation in the world! The nation drowns her sorrows in alcohol.

IRONY

Perhaps the greatest irony is that Namibia is not without resources. We have extraordinary marine resources. We have wildlife. We have minerals. We have land. We have agricultural potential. We have tourism. We have sunshine, wind and enormous natural wealth. Yet ordinary Namibians can often feel like outsiders in their own country. 

Take fish. The ordinary person cannot simply go to the sea and harvest its bounty. There are licences, quotas, regulations and conditions. Those systems may have legitimate purposes, including conservation and resource management. But the ordinary consumer is entitled to ask: Why is the fish that comes from our own waters sometimes so expensive that ordinary Namibians struggle to afford it? We watch resources leave our shores and then buy the finished product back at prices that can feel completely disconnected from ordinary incomes. We are being sold our own country back to us. Our land. Our fish. Our resources. Our services. Our future. Everything comes with a price tag. And the poorest among us pay the highest price. On top of all of this new state-endorsed invaders are forced upon us that are here to extract from Namibians only. Nothing, absolutely nothing belongs to us anymore. But we have each other. . .

EMPTY SLOGANS

For decades, Namibians have been given beautiful words: “One Namibia, One Nation”, “No Namibian Left Behind”, “One Namibian House” and “Namibians are too few to be poor”. Beautiful words. But words do not pay rent. Words do not buy groceries. Words do not pay school fees. Words do not pay medical bills. Words do not put fuel into a car. Words do not build houses. And words certainly do not put food on the table. Those words are empty and meaningless and meant to deceive and manipulate and control the nation only. Together with corruption, those very words drove the nation down the dungeons of greater poverty.

For many Namibians, the dream of becoming another Seychelles – a small population enjoying comparatively greater prosperity – remains painfully distant. Why? Because an economy cannot claim to serve its people while allowing the gap between those who have and those who have not to become so enormous. Namibia’s inequality has been widely documented. And when poverty becomes structural, telling poor people to simply work harder becomes an insult.

For years I have written in newspapers and on social media about the need for stronger consumer protection. I have argued for an institution that can systematically investigate the Namibian economy – whether that takes the form of a strengthened price-monitoring authority, a consumer ombudsman or another genuinely independent mechanism.

Someone must examine the prices, fees, levies, fares and tariffs attached to the goods and services Namibians depend on every day. Someone must ask whether they are reasonable. Someone must ask whether competition is functioning. Someone must investigate where excessive charges occur. Someone must listen to consumers. And someone must have the authority to act. Because what we have now is simply not good enough.

SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?

I am not writing this because I hate Namibia. Quite the opposite. I am writing it because I love this country enough to be angry about what is happening to its people.

I am angry that working people can work full-time and still struggle to survive. I am angry that young people can have qualifications and still have no meaningful economic future. I am angry that families can do everything society tells them to do – work, study, save, build – and still find the goalposts moving further away. I am angry that poverty has become normal.

I am angry that exploitation can hide behind complicated regulations, contracts, fees and respectable institutions. And perhaps most of all, I am angry that we have become so accustomed to it that we have started accepting it. We should not.

A country cannot call itself prosperous while its people are drowning in the cost of living. A nation cannot be truly free when millions of its citizens are economically trapped. And independence cannot mean much to a family that is technically free but cannot afford to live.

So here is my question to every Namibian: What are WE going to do about it? Not tomorrow. Not when another government takes office. Not when another committee is appointed. Not when another beautiful speech is delivered. Now. Because if we continue to remain silent, to accept every increase, every fee, every levy and every excuse, there will come a point when the system becomes so deeply entrenched that changing it becomes impossible.

We have allowed this for too long. We have adjusted for too long. We have suffered quietly for too long. Speak now. Question the prices. Question the systems. Demand transparency. Demand accountability. Demand an economy that works for the people who live in this country – not merely for those who profit from it. Because Namibia belongs to all of us. And ordinary Namibians should not have to buy their own country back from those who have turned almost every part of it into a business. Speak now – or forever hold your peace. – Article shortened/End

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