Martin Endjala
The Landless People’s Movement has called on the Cabinet to come up with a response to the devastating impact to the lives of the people in the midst of skyrocketing prices increases and the upward moving interest rates.
LPM spokesperson Eneas Emvula at a media briefing of the party yesterday, said the 50 basis points increased announced by the Bank of Namibia this week to 4.75 percent is a tremendous jump compared to the previous 25 basis points, emphasizing that this will have a huge economic impact on households.
Emvula painted a bleak picture of a significant drop in household purchasing power as food has become more expensive.
“If the breadwinner used to spend about 400 on food, they will now have to spend 300. Mind you that they have been buying the food for the proportion of the numbers of people in the house,
this then creates a gab of insufficient food as a remedy to survive till the situation changes”, Emvula
explained.
The increasing prices, Emvula said, will also leave no money to put away for savings.
The LPM is questioning what the cabinet is doing to address the situation that does not show any sign of cooling to cushion the burden on its people.
Emvula also wants to know, when the government intends to give feedback on the LPM’s proposal of a universal basic income grand, while explaining that the move by the Ministry of Gender, Equality, Poverty and Eradication to turn the Bood Bank vouchers into cash vouchers, is not reaching all the people, hence it raises eyebrows as to how the registration is done, given the fact that LPM has received reports of people who are in need are not benefiting from these grants.
Additionally, Emvula said that this is creating problems as it is excluding some people, hence the
proposal of a universal basic income grand for all Namibians.
He said excluding some people will result in a situation where residents in the Moses//Garoeb Constituency protested and accused the council of omitting some people who were registered.
He further suggested that the government look into tax cuts as a relief for the people during these trying economic times.
On 2024 elections campaign launched by other political parties already, the LPM spokespersons said that the party will be announcing its launch in due course.
