Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
With the country still reeling from the shock of the fait acompli of the liquidation of the national airline, the dust thereof shall yet to settle for now if ever, the country is now also reeling from another shock.
The privitisation of a number of State Owned Enterprises(SOEs). It does not need a rocket scientist to see that the liquidation of Air Namibia, is part of a grandmaster plan of privatisation involving SOEs like the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport), Namibia Institute of Pathology (NIP), Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR), Telecom Namibia and the Meat Corporation of Namibia (Meatco).
The liquidation, with private sector suitors for a takeover, surely the behind the scenes agent provocateurs and masterminds, has long been coming. It is not strange that part of the masterminds behind the privatisation is none other High-Level Panel on the Namibian Economy (HLPNE).
Not that the HLPNE sojourns would have themselves much to benefit, save for the crumbles which may be falling from the tables of the actual players and beneficiaries, who have been laying in ambush to run away with the spoils. Once capitalism is further entrenched and irreversible deepened in Namibia, which is the grandmaster plan. This is despite the big Constitutional lie that Namibia’s is a mixed economy. Since independence there’s has been little indication that Namibia is indeed a mixed economy. With private economic endeavours parallel to an essentially command economy where the State is the custodian of the resources of the country on behalf of the people. To prepare them for the day when the people themselves are ready to be in charge through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This is what should have been transpiring in Namibia in the letter and spirit of the avowed mixed economic system in the country. On the contrary, what one has been seeing is white capital monopoly entrenching itself more and more. Because if anything, the privatisation plan that the media has just revealed is nothing but white capital monopoly going for the spoils of the Namibian economy.
Looking at the SOEs, which have been targeted in this regard, this is not accidental but by design. Because they represent strategic sectors of the Namibian economy. Sectors which cannot, albeit white capital monopoly cannot and should not be left to the vagaries of an uncivilised indigenous aspiring capitalists, let alone the risks of a command economy. Because believe what you may, Die Swart Gevaar (Black Danger), meaning rule by black or Africans and the menace of communism as far as white capital monopoly is concerned, has far from having been over. That is why within the government of an independent Namibia, once has been seeing overseers of white capital monopoly, to ensure that the country does not “retrogress” into socialism and/or communism.
Thus it is not strange who seem to be the captain, within the Namibian Cabinet, of the privatisation plan. Admittedly some of the parastatals have been a serious drain on the Namibian treasury. Like Air Namibia has been. But has the national carrier even been put on a sound economic grounding? Or is there a conclusive evidence that it shall never be viable. Has it even ever been meant to be economically sustainable and viable? Surely Air Namibia is and cannot be the only national carrier in the world so unstainable as to be the sacrificial lamb for liquidation and/or privatisation. There must be other national carriers of even lesser economically endowed nations. But that have stood the test of times. The question is whether without any shadow of doubt Air Namibia can be said to have stood the test of time? As much one cannot but be cautious that the national carrier should just be for national pride. There must be a cost benefit analysis and what has been the cost benefit analysis as far as Air Namibia and i
ts operations are concerned?
If liquidation is the only solution and mindful of the 600 plus employees not only facing laying off but unemployment, whatever savings is to be had from the liquidation of the airline, liquidation shall only be worth the while, effort and the cost, if the offloading of the annual bailout is indeed a saving that can be put to better use. And what use is that? One would only be able to understand the rational of liquidation if given its flipside. Especially for those immediately and directly affected, and these are the 600 plus staff members of the company facing condemnation to unemployment.
