Marshall’s Economic Recovery Plan (Part 2)

SALOM SHILONGO WRITES:

People from the regional office must also visit villages from time to time, in order to make sure that the grant recipients are doing something for their community.

Any person receiving the basic income grant but he is not doing something for his community, then his grant must be suspended for three years.

Imagine a country where one can get food such as potatoes, carrots, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, onions, maize cobs, pumpkins, melons, fish, rabbit meat, pork, and white meat (from chicken and ducks/geese) from any village in Namibia all the time. That dream is possible if we implement a basic income grant for rural areas.

FACTORIES

We can also open some factories in rural areas so that some of the agricultural produce could be processed into food for human consumption or animal feed.

For example, some of the agricultural produce could be processed into animal feed for chicken, fish, pigs, rabbits, and ducks and so on.

A basic income grant for the rural areas has many advantages. For example, it could modernise the rural areas. It could reduce rural-urban migration. It could reduce the price of food, as well as the price of rent and land in the urban areas, as some people would move to the rural areas.

It could also add value to the land in the rural areas, boost the rural economy, and reduce congestion and competition for jobs in the urban areas. It could create a balanced economy instead of an urban based economy that we are currently having in Namibia.

SELF-SUFFICIENT

It could make Namibia self-sufficient in terms of food production. We need a cultural revolution in the rural areas.

For example, we can no longer rely on the traditional way of producing food.

Growing food only during the rainy season has to end. We must learn to grow food throughout the year. We need to turn the rural areas into a bread basket. Then the food could also be used for the school feeding programmes.

Destitute or vulnerable people in the urban areas can be given some of the food produced by the basic income grant recipients.

Unemployed persons who want to receive the basic income grant can move to the rural areas/green schemes.

EXACERBATE PROBLEMS

Of course, a basic income grant for the rural areas could also exacerbate problems such as over population, deforestation, crime, pollution and other social ills such as alcohol and drug abuse in the rural area.

The government has to build more schools and healthcare facilities in the rural areas as well. Because many people are going to move to the rural areas. But a universal basic income grant is not sustainable and it will just cause inflation.

However, a basic income grant for the rural areas should not be seen as a solution to the high unemployment rate in Namibia. We need to create jobs. And we can create jobs.

Everyone deserves to live a decent life. But no normal person would be content living off the basic income grant.

You can’t build a proper shelter for your family with the money from the basic income grant either. Neither can you provide a better life for your children.

Young people need secure jobs in order to build wealth and live a dignified life. – End

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