Government's scandalous behaviour

NAMIBIAN PATRIOT'S WRITES: No ruling party runs a country with its own resources. The national resources in the form of taxes from businesses and working people, and general sales taxes which all Namibians pay when they buy something, provide the funds for the government.

These national funds pay salaries of workers in the public service, build the necessary public infrastructure, and pay for operational costs. Every cent that our government spends often so recklessly comes from the different taxes that the Namibian people are paying. The electorate put the ruling Swapo Party in charge on the premise that they would manage and administer these resources responsibly to the benefit of all Namibians – as all Namibians, not only the ruling party's voters - contribute to the taxes. They are also in charge of our national natural resources, which equally, should be managed and used for the welfare of all Namibians.

Unfortunately, our leadership, who are still riding on the ticket of those who lost their lives for a free Namibia, have betrayed us time and time again. First, they act as if the resources belong to the ruling party hence jobs only for “comrades.” Now they have become even more ruthless and callous in their psychopathic style of looting Treasury to such an extent that it cries out to the heavens.

Every day citizens are confronted with more corruption and looting. They have also ensured that they are well protected by appointing toothless Anti –Corruption, Ombudsman, and Prosecutor General institutions which are dancing to their tunes.

We pray the corrupt ruling elite have nightmares when they live in their glass houses and drive flashy cars bought with ill-begotten government funds, while the majority of Namibians go to bed hungry at night in a one room shack with no ventilation, sanitation, flooring or potable water. We hope you have nightmares when you see how many Namibians are eating from rubbish dumps while you can just walk away with a loan of N$180 million of government funds meant to uplift suffering Namibians from poverty. We hope you get nasty hallucinations every night for every cent that you have unlawfully stolen from the public thereby denying students loans to further their education and causing many families to live undignified lives in shacks without the basic services.

Are you happy in your glass houses? You are looters but not on the same level as the desperate South Africans who took the opportunity - created to protect another psychopath, Zuma - to grab and run with a bag of 10 kg rice. Who created the example of looting there? Another “liberation party” with psychopathic leadership. The way political leaders relate to people, and the psychological climate they create through their influence determine if the people will advance or stagnate.

Most African governments, including Namibia, have created an atmosphere of hopelessness – of citizens feeling trapped in depression and in a state of schizophrenia because they cannot make sense that the same people that portrayed themselves as liberators are doling out poisonous suffering that keep them enslaved in chains of poverty. No wonder people are so violent, taking it out on anyone especially defenceless women and children they are angry, betrayed. No wonder that we have the highest substance abuse per capita in Sub-Sahara Africa. About half of our youth are without a future –unemployed, uneducated and with no opportunities or funds to improve on skills. Yet our government with careless and irresponsible impunity hands out millions to the corrupt and thieving elite.

The opposition leader once some years ago made an effort to go and live among the informal settlement dwellers to keep himself in touch with their daily challenges. We wished he had recorded how life was because the rest of Namibians outside the informal settlements take flush toilets, water and electricity and a measure of safety and security for granted. Namibia has fewer people than Soweto in Johannesburg or Cape Town. Although Namibia is a vast country and these are cities, the Namibian government is ruling the same number of people than the City of Cape Town with access to national resources that the Cape Town City as local government can only dream of. And yet our government has failed us dismally in every way.
In Gaborone, a smaller capital city like Windhoek, there are no shacks of corrugated iron.

Taking this in consideration how can government sweep incidents and outcries of the public about corruption of the officials under the carpet? This is an injustice to the people and spitting in their faces for daring to uncover it. History will judge you very harshly and hopefully our electorate will open their eyes for the next election to tell another tale. If not, we deserve to be ruled by such exceedingly cruel and unscrupulous leaders.

Where is your integrity? Where are your morals? We are not jealous of your material wealth. We do not need millions to validate that we have worth. You cannot take what you are stealing from us to the grave and surely if you have a conscience, your wealth does not even make you happier than most of us.
Happiness comes from within and not from belongings. Your values are upside down. You are supposed to serve the Namibian people and not mismanage, steal and abuse our hard-earned taxes to enrich yourselves. People are not remembered by the world by their belongings, but rather how they make people feel. You will forever be remembered for making us feel like undignified idiots and treating us like trash. Shame on you!