Herrta-Maria Aumtenya
Affirmative Repositioning (AR) Member of Parliament, George Kambala, has urged the National Assembly to take decisive action on youth inclusion, stating that young people demand dignity and not handouts.
Delivering his maiden speech on Thursday, Kambala reflected on his own difficult journey to parliament, marked by protest, expulsion from Swapo, and public ridicule.
Alongside AR leader Job Amupanda and current Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare, Kambala was suspended from Swapo for their radical stance on land and justice.
“It has been a journey of protest and pain, accusations, ridicule and resistance. I know what it means to be humiliated for standing up for justice. I have tasted the bitterness of exile from institutions for daring to question injustice. I have slept in the streets, speaking truth to power. And yet, through every humiliation, I never let go of the belief that our country belongs to all of us, especially the youth. I stand here because I refused to give up,” said the firebrand activist.
He implored parliament to no longer marginalise those who struggle economically.
Kambala, who during his activism resorted to poultry farming, said he knows the real struggle of the youth and the poor.
“Young people remain the catalyst of any developmental state. It is not enough to call them the future while denying them power in the present. It is not enough to celebrate youth during August while excluding them from policy implementation in September.”
Kambala insisted that there should be a quota for youth and insisted that they can no longer be a mere footnote in the government’s developmental agenda.
He called for the establishment of and access to markets, funding, and leadership without restrictions or red tape.
“We must introduce and properly resource the National Youth Development Fund, a fund not built on endless paperwork but on trust, innovation and courage. Let us put young people on land, not just in slogans, but in deeds. Let us ensure that youth cooperatives and agribusinesses are given access to arable land and affordable financing without collateral. If we do not act boldly now, we will raise a generation that feels betrayed and neglected by the very soil they were born to,” he stressed.
He added that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which the government ratified in 2019, remains a bureaucratic milestone, while in reality it is an opportunity.
Kambala, however, cautioned that the country cannot afford to go to a continental level with old inequalities.
“Young Namibians must be equipped, resourced, and mobilised to compete, to collaborate, and to lead. Let us be honest. Our youth policies are scattered, underfunded, and disconnected from real-time realities. There is a mismatch between rhetoric and budget, between intention and implementation. The absence of a youth quota in key national structures is not only a legislative gap. It is a moral failure,” he said.
