EDITORIAL: Rein in the travels
In the honeymoon phase of late president Hage Geingob’s tenure in office, he announced a ban on foreign trips for top government officials, including ministers, so that they could concentrate on resolving domestic problems. That podium rhetoric came in April 2015 – a month into his presidency.
While that ban was to compel ministers to stay home and do their work, a similar directive was made in January 2018, when the president said he was banning foreign trips “in the interest of curtailing public expenditure”.
To date, neither domestic challenges nor public expenditure has been dealt a fatal blow. Yet, travelling overseas continues unabated. President Nangolo Mbumba has spent more time in the air than he has in his new office. The weekly newspaper Confidente last week asked, in a front page article, whether Mbumba was a ‘hard worker or jet-setter’.
Domestic challenges persist. Hunger, unemployment and the cancellation of mid-year exams in some government schools due to lack of funds, as Namibian Sun reports today. Higher education minister Dr Itah Kandjii-Murangi racked up N$900 000 in her widely publicised overseas travels in the recent past, and her agriculture counterpart Calle Schlettwein got rapped over the knuckles this week for attending the comically-christened ‘clean cooking in Africa’ summit in France.
How about everyone lock their passports away and do some actual work for the country here at home? The Namibian House, if that still exists post 4 February, needs its parents at home. Leave Paris to the romantics and sommeliers.
While that ban was to compel ministers to stay home and do their work, a similar directive was made in January 2018, when the president said he was banning foreign trips “in the interest of curtailing public expenditure”.
To date, neither domestic challenges nor public expenditure has been dealt a fatal blow. Yet, travelling overseas continues unabated. President Nangolo Mbumba has spent more time in the air than he has in his new office. The weekly newspaper Confidente last week asked, in a front page article, whether Mbumba was a ‘hard worker or jet-setter’.
Domestic challenges persist. Hunger, unemployment and the cancellation of mid-year exams in some government schools due to lack of funds, as Namibian Sun reports today. Higher education minister Dr Itah Kandjii-Murangi racked up N$900 000 in her widely publicised overseas travels in the recent past, and her agriculture counterpart Calle Schlettwein got rapped over the knuckles this week for attending the comically-christened ‘clean cooking in Africa’ summit in France.
How about everyone lock their passports away and do some actual work for the country here at home? The Namibian House, if that still exists post 4 February, needs its parents at home. Leave Paris to the romantics and sommeliers.
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Namibian Sun
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