Force and direct public infrastructure development

Last week, we bemoaned the lack of a development agenda that results from five factors.

Firstly, there is the multiplicity of development plans and institutions. These plans and institutions are not synergistically coordinated.

Second, these plans and institutions contradict each other at times. Three, we dealt with a distracted leadership often caught up in scandals and thus unable to focus on the development agenda. Fourth was the centre, characterised by the Swapo hegemonic elite, that is unable to hold in developmental terms.

Fifth, we covered the ageing leaders who should not be relied upon to bring about development. The column concluded that our country could therefore not be counted among countries with a developmental agenda.

The result of this chaotic picture is not only a country that is directionless but one that will keep decaying in development terms.

For instance, the population keeps growing while unemployment keeps rising. In the absence of a convincing argument, one could even speculate that the reason why government did not make funds available for the census as scheduled is because of the predictable results that could emerge.

All signs are that this data collection exercise will present a truthful but uncomfortable picture for the political elite.

Think of a man who was heavily drunk a night before and who wakes up the next day, realising he has been sick all over his bed, which was covered with clean white sheets by his wife before she left for a trip to a church outside of town.

The man then hears his domestic worker knocking to come in and clean as usual.

Although the man knows that cleaning the room is the solution, he refuses to open the door out of shame. Like this man, the government knows that the census is important but chooses not to fund it.

The purpose and design of this column are to share ideas that can either aid in understanding or build our society.

Given that we have no coordinated leadership on the development agenda and all that has been explained in previous columns, what can we consider?

Those privileged with an understanding of development theory would understand that industrialisation cannot occur without infrastructure development.

Currently, infrastructure development only occurs through the development budget, which has been in sharp decline for 10 years now, or through projects funded by development partners.

One can consider the role that commercial and public enterprises can play in infrastructure development. Imagine a situation where a president directs the following:

That MTC builds five international-standard football stadiums over a ten-year period – one in Windhoek, another in Swakopmund, one in Oranjemund, the other in Ruacana, and one in Impalila Island. Not only is MTC capable of delivering this, but it would also mean we could host international sporting events. The amount of jobs that will be created is self evident. Imagine Namport is directed to build five recreational parks (with concerts, children's playgrounds, restaurants and cultural markets) in Walvis Bay, Gobabis, Helao Nafidi, Windhoek and Karasburg.

What would be the impact of Namdeb building an international airport at Lüderitz?

Imagine Gipf were tasked with building a state-of-the-art university in the north that can accommodate 20 000 students to swallow all the scattered and funny Unam campuses. Think of a resolute leadership that can task Namdia, Meatco and the DBN to build and fund 20 mega food-production farms in the Zambezi and Kavango regions to support government feeding schemes at schools, hospitals and prisons.

Currently, these schemes get food from South Africa. Imagine Telecom and NAC are instructed to build five referral hospitals during the same period.

What could happen is that this project is directed at the highest level. Ministers, boards and CEOs of these companies would be called to State House by a resolute president and given clear instructions. While at State House, they are requested to sign this agreement in public and then sent back to start working.

They will be required to brief the public after six months on the progress made.

With these interventions, the nation would be able to make a dent in the underdevelopment and unemployment situation that has been left by an incapable government characterised by feeble leaders who are constantly defending corruption allegations.

Leadership, which we don’t have, matters in development. All countries that have succeeded had to take decisive and radical decisions, and this included directing and forcing development. With our sheep-like leaders, the possible society described here will remain a distant possibility. We need new leaders; we need them as early as yesterday.

Muthoni waKongola is a native of Kongola in the Zambezi Region primarily concerned with analysing society and offering ideas for a better Namibia. She is reachable at [email protected] or @wakongola on Twitter.