Kae Matundu
“World Bank study says no to NEEEF,” screamed the headline of the lead article of a local English daily.
Yours Truly Ideologically could not but muse as to who the heck is the World Bank and what nerve and audacity if not arrogance they have to literally dictate to Namibia how she may or may not run her affairs? This to some may be seen as a friendly advice from a world institution to a friendly but sovereign nation. But there’s more to the seeming friendly advice by the World Bank. Simple dictatorship all in the final analysis to protect capitalist interests in Namibia. Because as much as the World Bank and its capitalists adherents would like us to believe, the Bretton Woods institutes, of which the World Bank is an integral part, has nothing to do with the development of the South, and its people, and thus stability of sovereign nations of the South. Stability is defined and can be defined by the World Bank only as far as making the environment friendly and conducive for the exploitation of the natural resources of the countries of the South by multinationals from the North, only to leave countries and/or nat
ions of the South and their peoples high and dry, and underdeveloped. But the Northern metropoles developed and prospering. While the people of the South are the biggest losers of the world economic production order and relations in which capitalists from the North are pulling all the strings and calling all the shots. Of course with the mechanisations of their mother bodies of the Bretton Woods.
Whether one would wish to appreciate it or not, the National Equitable Economic Empowerment Framework (NEEEF), which has long been coming, is the envisaged framework through which the Namibian government would endeavour to empower the indigenous political and economic elite or bourgeoisie. By facilitating accessing to private companies’ shareholding. An endeavour that has been meeting fierce resistance from private companies. Leading to the emasculation of the framework by removing the very clause which was to allow a substantial shareholding to the previously disadvantaged aspiring indigenous capitalists.
The clause which was to grant the bourgeoisie a 25 percent stake in private companies. It is any wonder why in view of the removal of this clause, NEEEF must and should any longer is and still a matter of concern at all to the World Bank and sundry, including Namibia’s corporations that has been at the forefront of the resistance against NEEEF? A resistance that the World Bank typically, and not unexpected given the DNA of the Bretton Woods institutions, which is all and only about preserving capitalism, is now giving a voice to. That is if indeed all along the corporate world surely have not already ran to their Big Brothers, one of them which is the World Bank. The World Bank together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), were created in 1944 to presumably help restore and sustain the benefits of global integration, by promoting international economic cooperation. As much as today’s Europe-ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries trade relationship, as governed by the ACP-EU partnership agr
eement. The foremost objective of the EU-ACP partnership was trade preferential treatment, and the industrialisation of the ACP countries. More than 60 years after few of the ACP countries can claim any meaningful industrialisation. Simply the ACP countries have been taken for a ride and continues to be so. With the very WB and IMF the vanguards in this continued marginalisation of the people of the South through the economic exploitation of their natural resources leaving this countries underdeveloped as they are overexploited.
Thus the WB and IMF cannot be seen in any different context and aspect other than the continued exploitation and marginalisation of the peoples of the South. Likewise this is what the WB is manifesting with its so-called study on NEEEF. The continued exploitation of the natural resources of Namibia and the sustained marginalisation and impoverishment of her peoples, and the preservation of the capitalist system. Exactly what all these years the Bretton Woods institutions have been busy with notwithstanding the political independence of most of the countries in the South. Political independence which has never translated into economic independence if ever. Unless the masses in the South, including workers, awaken to their historic mission of unshackling the shackles of capitalism exploitation.
The essence of institutions such as the WB and IMF is succinctly laid bare, among others, by John Perkins, in his book: Confessions Of A Hitman. Himself once an economic hitman and an operative for the WB and IMF. Whose essence is going to any extreme to destabilise nations of the world, especially in the South, to get their hands on their natural resources. Few of the ACP’s countries, or any countries of the South for that matter, have not seen the imposition of the destabilising Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), with many often threatened by none other than the IMF or World Bank. Simply for trying to carve an own independent economic development path, but which is perceived as unstainable, an euphemism for being against the bests interests of capitalism. This is exactly what the World Bank is venturing into with regard to Namibia and the NEEEF.
Yours Truly Ideologically does not have any affinity for NEEEF. A capitalist inspired framework that it is and eventually if it sees the end of the day, only there to the benefit of aspiring and the latent bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie. With little benefit to the masses, particularly the workers. Yours Truly Ideologically would be the last person to pray in any that the WB and/or IMF have any dealings with Namibia because their track record so far in the world, especially the South has been nothing but disastrous and retrogressive and at best have seen democratically-elected governments deposed. Nor shall Yours Truly Ideolgoically have any remorse should ither then WB and/or IMF cause the demise of IMF.
Firstly because it cannot and shall never deliver the Namibian workers from the yoke of capitalist exploitation. But because of the dictatorial and destabilisation underhand heavy handed ways and means of these institutions, and the countries sponsoring them, which have seen many a well-meaning leaders of the South deposed and killed for genuinely believing, for some, in the plight of their peoples and redressing them in one way or another, Yours Truly Ideologically shall never condone the actions of WB/IMF regarding NEEEF. Similarly Yours Truly Ideologically cannot but give the Namibian government the benefit of the doubt with regard to NEEEF as limited in scope and fundamentally ideologically flawed as it is and may be.
