Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
Is it early days? Yours Truly, Ideologically, I cannot but ask but at the same time also answer that it is by no means early days.
Simply because for someone determined that it is “business unusual”, it cannot be early days at all. Since the message has been loud and clear, the media seem to be having a field day with the new administration “hitting the ground running” in their respective spaces. What does the new administration mean by “hitting the ground running”? One may be prompted to ask. Given that the president has only had three months to assemble his executive team, it is unrealistic to expect immediate results, particularly in terms of a paradigm shift.
It would be long, if ever, for Her Excellency Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s A-team, if it is worth being referred to and let alone considered an A-team, to ever get out of the starting blocks to be “hitting the ground running”. Simply as one critical ingredient and/or element, on the face of it, does not exist if perhaps altogether not hidden for now. This is the ideological disposition to catapult the team and its captain towards gaining the necessary momentum. Indeed, given its diversity, the team may possess the necessary expertise. But this alone is not enough without the necessary ideological disposition and inclination. This is especially true given the apparent absence of such disposition and inclination on the part of the supreme leader.
Yours Truly Ideological has already previously in this column highlighted NNN’s dilemma. Her apparent lack of a catalyst ideology to guide and propel this “new ship” towards and through uncharted waters of radical socio-economic transformation has been highlighted. A fresh horizon, which, given the lack of a defined ideology, would propel her towards “business unusual”, whatever this “business unusual” is and shall be.
A prospect that is equally rendered remote because of the ambiguity as it is and has been of the “business unusual” conjecture and rhetoric. As until “business unusual” is made clear what it is and entails, how can anyone, especially those who are being made and led to believe in it, realistically judge that it is indeed “business unusual” and that it is not mere rhetoric?
Already with her A-team now known, it is hard, its presumed expertise notwithstanding, and semblance of diversity and inclusivity, to believe in it in the absence of an ideological clarity of how it can propel itself towards the pronounced “business unusual”. Without taking anything away from the expertise of the team, Yours Truly Ideologically cannot but muse how the appreciated expertise can and could be of any use and application in the opportunistic den of politicking instead of consequent and meaningful policy-making. Because ultimately ministers in cabinet and the chief minister, the president’s business is about relevant and effective policies.
Needless to say, while technocrats could have been properly deployed and employed on the ground for the implementation of the existing policies, they now have to reinvent policies to be seen to be doing something in the realm of “business unusual”. Yours Truly Ideologically, I am yet to be convinced that what has been needed hitherto by any cabinet, gone and present, as is the case with the recent and current one, for the next five years for that matter, as it may be and turn out to be, are very much technocrats in ministerial positions and/or in the cabinet.
Where their preoccupation essentially is and should be correct and relevant policies to address, in particular and crucially, the material needs of the country’s economically oppressed and exploited populace.
After 35 years of self-determination, even in policy-making, it is Yours Truly Ideologically’s conviction that many policies abound in many of our ministries where they have been gathering dust, unimplemented. Despite the fact that some of the roomed technocrats now in charge of one or the other ministry, whatever the case is and may be, are failing to implement the already existing policies. Only to now expect them to do wonders. How? It is beyond one’s understanding. Other than reinventing the same policies.
Thus, Yours Truly Ideologically, call him naïve and unrealistic and/or pessimistic as you may wish, cannot but see the new president and the new cabinet as no more than just another experimental exercise in the game of political power. As has been the case with many before. Rather than a serious push, let alone a bid, in the beginning, putting the gear in drive towards addressing the plight of the suffering masses.
A few of the new ministers have already spoken with reference to their intentions. Nothing, honestly, of note in terms of a paradigm shift. Which their predecessors did not speak about. Utterances which were soon forgotten as soon as they had warmed themselves comfortably into ministerial seats. Listening to one or two, one gets the impression that they are and must have been abreast of the doings and/or non-doings in the respective ministries. Which is a bonus for them and their captain. But? It really remains to be seen that it is not mere talk and no doing. But most concerning to Yours Truly Ideologically there’s no hint of an ideological inclination rather than a hollow political intent.
The 2025/2026 under the new administration has been tabled in the National Assembly. Speaking to nothing but continuity. Very much resembling the work in progress, if it can be referred to as work in progress rather than work of retrogression, of the previous administration and/or previous Minister of Finance. It is just baffling how the new Minister of Finance, as well as the National Planning Commission (NPC) Director General (DG) and the new administration for that matter, would claim it at all. Because it has no single pointer of and to “business unusual”. If the 2025/2026 budget represents the beginning towards ”business unusual”, Namibians haven’t seen anything yet.
