Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
The phrase “paying to survive, paying to exist” captures a growing frustration felt across the world.
Yet in Africa in general and Namibia in particular, despite the latter being ranked as one of Africa’s top performing countries, climbing from 15th to third place after South Africa and Mauritius according to the French publications Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, there is a growing frustration that points toward an even deeper truth.
It seems the issue is not simply about the cost of living but about the cost of powerlessness.
Indeed, across the world, a growing number of people express a common frustration that they feel as though they are paying simply to survive.
This reality is often explained through inflation, economic crises, or the rising cost of living.
While these factors are important, they do not answer a more fundamental question such as why survival itself has become increasingly expensive in societies that are supposedly becoming more productive, technologically advanced, and wealthier.
This question acquires even greater significance when viewed through an African lens.
Across the continent, millions of citizens wake each day to a relentless cycle of economic obligations. They pay for transportation, water, electricity, healthcare, education, communication, food, housing, and taxes.
Their labour is exchanged not for abundance but often for subsistence. The majority work not to build wealth but to avoid collapse.
Yet Africa is not poor, as the continent possesses immense mineral wealth, vast agricultural potential, strategic energy resources, and one of the youngest populations on earth.
It holds many of the raw materials necessary for the technologies that will shape the twenty-first century.
The paradox, therefore, demands serious reflection on how a continent so rich can produce societies where survival remains a daily struggle.
The answer cannot be found solely in economics. It must be sought in questions of power.
The cost of powerlessness beyond the cost of living
The phrase “paying to exist” is not merely an economic observation. It is a political statement.
Every economic system reflects decisions about ownership, control, distribution, and access. Prices are not natural phenomena. They are the outcomes of policies, institutions, laws, and power relations.
When electricity becomes unaffordable, someone has determined how energy is produced, distributed, and priced.
When housing becomes inaccessible, someone has shaped land policy, urban planning, financial regulation, and property ownership structures.
When healthcare becomes a privilege rather than a right, someone has decided how national resources are allocated.
The real question, therefore, is not simply why life is expensive.
The real question is; who decides the conditions under which life is lived?
The answer to that question reveals the true distribution of power within a society.
The legacy of extraction
To understand Africa’s present condition, one must understand its historical role within the global economy.
Colonialism was not merely a political project but it was an economic system designed to extract wealth. Infrastructure was often constructed not primarily to connect African societies with one another but to facilitate the export of resources.
Colonial economies were organized around extraction rather than industrialization, dependency rather than self sufficiency.
Political independence transformed colours of flags, constitutions, and governments, but many economic structures remained largely intact.
Raw materials continue to leave African shores.
Finished goods continue to return at significantly higher prices.
African labour continues to generate value that is frequently captured elsewhere.
This reality raises a difficult but necessary question; has Africa achieved political independence without achieving economic sovereignty?
For many countries, the answer remains unsettled.
Ownership and the question of wealth
One of the greatest challenges facing the continent is not the absence of resources but the ownership and control of those resources.
Who owns the mines? Who owns the banks? Who controls strategic infrastructure? Who determines the terms of investment? Who captures the greatest share of profits generated from African wealth?
These questions lie at the heart of the African development dilemma and contradictions revealing that production alone is insufficient.
The critical issue is control and ownership.
Without sovereignty, wealth becomes an export.
Without strategic governance, abundance can coexist with poverty.
The challenge facing Africa is therefore not merely to produce more but to retain, manage, and transform more of the value it creates.
Governance and the African state
A serious Pan-African analysis must also confront internal realities. External forces alone cannot explain contemporary African challenges.
The post-colonial state bears responsibility for many of its own shortcomings. Corruption, weak institutions, elite capture, poor planning, and the privatization of public interest have often transformed governments into managers of scarcity rather than architects of development.
Too frequently, political systems become disconnected from national development projects.
Instead of asking how resources can transform society, leaders often focus on how political power can preserve itself and how they can benefit. The result is a silent social contract crisis. Citizens pay more and the states deliver less therefore trust erodes.
When this pattern persists, economic frustration gradually becomes political frustration, and political frustration eventually becomes a crisis of legitimacy.
The global architecture of dependence
The struggle to survive cannot be separated from the international economic order.
African nations operate within a global system where financial markets, debt structures, trade rules, credit ratings, and capital flows significantly influence domestic policy choices.
Governments often find themselves constrained by external obligations and internal vulnerabilities.
Debt repayments can take precedence over social investment.
Commodity price fluctuations can destabilize national budgets.
Foreign capital can exercise influence that rivals democratic institutions.
Under such circumstances, sovereignty becomes increasingly complex and this raises one of the defining questions of our era which is; can a nation be politically independent while remaining economically dependent?
For Africa, this question remains central to both policy and identity.
Reclaiming the meaning of development
For decades, development has been measured primarily through economic growth statistics. Yet growth alone cannot be the measure of success.
A nation is not developed simply because its GDP rises but a nation is developed when its people can live with dignity. When citizens must dedicate most of their lives to securing basic necessities, development remains incomplete.
When young people see migration as their primary path to opportunity, development remains incomplete.
When resource wealth enriches a small minority while millions struggle, development remains incomplete.
When growth occurs without structural transformation, development remains incomplete.
The purpose of economic activity and the true measure of development should be the enhancement of human life, not the perpetual expansion of transactions.
Toward an African future
The challenge before Africa is not merely reducing inflation or attracting investment, the challenge is deeper.
It is about reclaiming agency transforming African states from managers of extraction into architects of production.
It is about building economies that process African resources, finance African innovation, and serve African societies ensuring that sovereignty extends beyond political symbolism into economic reality.
This transformation requires a long term commitment to industrialization, technological advancement, agricultural modernization, infrastructure development, and regional integration.
It requires African countries to move beyond exporting raw materials and toward producing finished goods, intellectual property, and technological solutions.
It requires stronger institutions capable of balancing market efficiency with national development objectives.
Most importantly, it requires a renewed belief that Africa’s future should be shaped primarily by African priorities rather than external imperatives.
Yet governments alone cannot achieve this transformation.
Citizens, entrepreneurs, workers, educators, intellectuals, and civil society all share responsibility for shaping the future.
A culture of production must replace a culture of dependence.
Accountability must replace complacency.
Long term national projects must take precedence over short term political calculations.
The central challenge facing Africa in the twenty-first century is therefore not simply how to reduce the cost of living.
It is how to increase the value of African agency.
From survival to stewardship
This reflection must not lead to resignation as history demonstrates that no society has permanently escaped dependency through outrage alone.
Nations transform themselves when they convert awareness into institutions, resources into productive capacity, and political aspirations into long-term development strategies.
For Africa, this means moving beyond an economy centered on extraction toward one centered on value creation.
It means processing resources locally, strengthening industrial capacity, investing in science and technology, modernizing agriculture, and building financial systems that mobilize domestic capital for national development.
Sovereignty is not measured by symbols alone but is measured by a society’s ability to shape its own future.
A truly sovereign nation is one that can feed itself, educate its people, power its industries, finance its development, and provide meaningful opportunities to future generations.
The ultimate goal is not merely to make survival cheaper.
It is to make prosperity attainable.
It is to create societies where people can innovate, create, accumulate, and thrive.
It is to ensure that citizens are not merely consumers and taxpayers, but active participants in the construction of national wealth.
Conclusion
The phrase “paying to survive, paying to exist” exposes that the issue is not simply the cost of living. It is the cost of powerlessness.
The struggle for African liberation remains unfinished. Yet its next chapter is not only about resisting external domination.
It is about constructing the economic, political, and civic foundations that allow Africans to become full stewards of their collective destiny.
Only then will the conversation move beyond the burden of paying to exist and toward the possibility of determining our destiny and owning the future.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They represent our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
