EDITORIAL: More than cosmetics
In households across the country, belts are being tightened. Whether that home is a five-bedroom villa in the hills of the capital, or a small, one-roomed shack in one of our many informal settlements. People are feeling the pinch of the current economic pressure. And they are feeling it hard.
Retrenchments are rife and many smaller businesses have closed their doors.
Farmers - both commercial and communal – have been crippled by several years of low rainfall and the prevailing drought has them on their knees to such an extent that they will sell cattle, on the hoof, for next to nothing.
Private schools across the country are finding that fees are going unpaid, while grocery trolleys have become emptier, stocked only with the absolute essentials. Yes, everyone has to count their pennies.
Except, it seems, government.
We are not seeing any kind of savings there; only pleas to staff to do more with less. But in terms of perks, benefits, travel and the like, we are not seeing the effects of the economic climate at all.
It is, after all, the Swapo administration that brought us here with years of inaction on failed and incomplete projects; lack of decentralisation and development; lack of planning, and more. Yet the citizenry is expected to bear the brunt of it all. We hope that more than cosmetic changes are in store when it comes to the next administration.
Retrenchments are rife and many smaller businesses have closed their doors.
Farmers - both commercial and communal – have been crippled by several years of low rainfall and the prevailing drought has them on their knees to such an extent that they will sell cattle, on the hoof, for next to nothing.
Private schools across the country are finding that fees are going unpaid, while grocery trolleys have become emptier, stocked only with the absolute essentials. Yes, everyone has to count their pennies.
Except, it seems, government.
We are not seeing any kind of savings there; only pleas to staff to do more with less. But in terms of perks, benefits, travel and the like, we are not seeing the effects of the economic climate at all.
It is, after all, the Swapo administration that brought us here with years of inaction on failed and incomplete projects; lack of decentralisation and development; lack of planning, and more. Yet the citizenry is expected to bear the brunt of it all. We hope that more than cosmetic changes are in store when it comes to the next administration.
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article