Open letter to Honourable John Mutorwa, minister of transport

Dear Honourable Minister,

I have decided to write this letter in order to put forth the cries I daily hear in both Kavango West and Kavango East Regions respectively especially from young people. The cardinal complains is that it is difficult for people to get licences in Kavango and as a result some are driving without it or unaccompanied. This is a dangerous scenario which needs to be addressed urgently. A related concern is that those who wish to enter into a taxi or public transportation business to eke out a living are equally prevented by this circumstances. On the other hand, it is reported that some officials are enticing bribes as a way to get more from the desperate people in this region who need driving licences.

I am aware that this trend is said to be happening all over the country. It is easy for government officials to dismiss this as pure rumours because there is no evidence, but it happens and it is happening. I have heard of many young people talking about how they could expose this scam of corruptions, but they fear that might fire back by losing their licences they got by corruption.

This scam is too sophisticated to disclose, for it is an organised crime by either between some individual driving schools, friends, testing officers and others. Bribe are paid indirect to the testers in form of money or animals. Victims of this corruption mostly are youth, retired civil servants, foreigners and business persons.

There are many people who want to buy vehicles for various purposes, but the stumbling blocks are obtaining drivers licenses. Many young people who are wandering around could get employed. But the culprits are the unpatriotic testing officers of NaTis of Road Authority and the ministry itself who are not yet aware that transport industry in the rural areas could be a big employer for youth.

For example, the distance from Nkurenkuru to Rundu is 140 km and to Divundu 200 km from Rundu, taxi money plus other basic needs, for an unemployed, disadvantaged poor youth from outlying villages is not easy for them. If asking road authorities to take driving tests to those places, the answer would be that Nkurenkuru and Divundu have no good facilities yet for driving tests. What good facilities? I obtained my learner’s and driving licences in Rundu in 1976.

The testing officer was coming from Grootfontein once or twice a month. I was asked five questions and one of them was “Wat is die toegeeteken?” (what is the give way sign?), and for driving I was taken around to Mangarangandja route back to the office at the then Total Fuel Station, where now Pupkewitz Megabuild operating. I passed my driving license in Rundu where no bitumen or gravel road by then. There were no road signs in Rundu at that time, only few stop signs were there in white residents of then Blanke Dorp and now Tutungeni.

I can advise that Nkurenkuru and Divundu presently are better than the Rundu roads we knew by then. In an independent Namibia, our people should not suffer like in previous dispensation, where driving were denied to them. In the 1970s, I remember a driver came from Europe to drive a vehicle for church to transport hostel things, for blacks that time was not easy to obtain a driving license.

Honourable Minister, I am relating the above as a call for your intervention. The corruption is being alleged is real and needs to be addressed. The money being collected through this scam is not going in the national treasury but into the pockets of some corrupt individuals. There should be check and balance to see whether things are going well. I think the driving test officers are granted to much freedom which they are abusing. Some Kavango youth are fleeing to go to other regions to get driving licenses. These are facts. Where do you find, in this world a person who can fail seven times driving while monkeys can only learn a day to drive, why not a human being who is more intellectual than other creature?

I therefore appeal to the Ministry of Transport to consider the following:

To urgently open driving tests in both Nkurenkuru and Divundu without delay so that young people can be saved from long distance and poverty and to have our people who have money can buy vehicles without any corruption fears.

Reform structure, monitor, supervise the testing of driving at Natis, and find out why leaners and candidates of driving are failing so much seven times or more.

Not to leave the student drivers at the expense of the examiners without a check and balance.

Affordable public driving schools should be considered to rescue the young people from poor families.

Postgraduate learners of Grade 11-12, of 18 ages, should be considered for driving, because driving licences is one of required criteria for employment.

Permit for taxi and bus transportation be decentralised to the regions and facilitated as such.

I appeal to you Honourable Minister (kamentu zange) who, I know, as a competent and visionary leader to do something tangible so that corruption in this institution can be eliminated, and for our young people to be afforded the opportunity enjoyed by the rest of the country; so that our people can buy and drive their own vehicles; can get driving VIP vehicle outside and inside countries, especially in SADC countries.

HH Ausiku

Nkurenkuru