Swapo, IPC miles apart on jobs, taxes and youth

If re-elected to office, Swapo will continue to strengthen the domestic revenue base by ensuring effective taxation collection, while the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) would seek to gradually reduce corporate tax from the current 32% to 22% and exempt small businesses with profits below N$2 million from corporate tax altogether.

These promises are contained in the manifestos the two rival parties’ launched on Saturday in Windhoek.

IPC's manifesto promises to introduce a tailored tax regime for SMEs and new start-ups and increase the VAT threshold to a turnover of N$2 million. The party, contesting its first ever National Assembly election in November, also pledged to introduce a descending dividend tax rate to enable small businesses to reinvest in growth and only pay tax on funds taken out of their businesses.

In this regard, Swapo will “enhance the role of the public sector and expand the size of the formal private sector to improve productivity," its manifesto reads.

Jobs

In its election manifesto, Swapo promises to create over 250 000 jobs over the next five years, while IPC elected not to dive into numbers but listed a myriad of reforms of systems and current institutions, such as the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN), to make job creation easier.

Namibia faces a staggeringly high unemployment rate, with around 40% of youth affected.

Swapo vice-president and presidential candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said mass employment will stem from investments in sports infrastructure and incentives, construction projects and investment in the health, education and arts, agriculture and youth development sectors.

Swapo will “allocate a budget of approximately N$85.7 billion over five years to prioritise projects that would create mass employment opportunities, leading to the absorption of unemployed graduates and other Namibians looking for jobs,” Swapo's manifesto reads.

IPC, on the other hand, talks of introducing a National Youth Employment Guarantee Scheme, providing at least 100 days of paid work or skill development for unemployed youth annually. The party says it will further implement tax incentives for companies that hire and train young graduates.

Agriculture

In terms of transforming the agriculture sector and ensuring food security, Swapo has promised, among many things, that it will fork out around N$500 million annually on food production to address hunger and poverty.

In this regard, IPC promises to create agricultural training institutes in all 14 regions, focusing on agri-business and agri-tech skills.

Land

Land reform remains an emotive issue, given the country’s history of forced and sometimes violent dispossessions. To rectify this, IPC says it will engage the German government to provide material funding and post-transfer support and training for the willing seller-willing buyer land redistribution programme and its beneficiaries.

The IPC also plans to unlock the economic potential of communal land use by providing secure property rights through the issuance of title deeds to current owners and developing detailed land use plans for communal areas, including agriculture, tourism and other sectors.

Regarding land, Swapo says it will continue implementing the recommendations of the second national land conference held in 2018 and accelerate the promulgation and implementation of the land law, specifically to ensure that leaseholds in communal areas have access to finance.

The ruling party says it will expedite the land allocation process under the land reform programme for agricultural activities, with support from AgriBank and DBN, with a special focus on youth and women.

As of August 2023, only a paltry 25 of the 169 resolutions taken at the 2018 land indaba had been fully implemented, a draft progress report indicated at the time.

Swapo also plans to acquire farmlands that border town areas to extend local authority boundaries within the ambit of applicable law.

Natural resources

Swapo says it will “urgently enact a comprehensive law to regulate the oil and gas industries, among others, providing for local ownership and participation and other incidental matters”.

It also commits to ownership by Namibians of a sizeable and fair share in the oil and gas industries to ensure that Namibians benefit from these natural resources, among others.

IPC, on the other hand, says it would review the mining tax and royalty schemes to ensure Namibia receives a fair share of earnings from mining activities and the sale of Namibia’s resources, while leaving a fair deal on the table for investors providing expertise and capital and taking risks in exploration and similar activities in Namibia. The party also promises to “publish all mining licenses and exploration applications, contracts and licenses online for public scrutiny”.

‘No comparison between the two’

Reacting to the two manifestos, economist Rowland Brown said: “My first impression is that while the Swapo manifesto is not terrible, it lacks any practical plans and details to address the major issues faced by the country.

“It’s got a lot of the failed, old ideas repeated, including picking sectoral winners, reviving the unnecessary failed airline [Air Namibia], benefaction, special economic zones and similar. In essence, it remains a government-centric plan, which will fail to unleash strong growth and, more importantly, won’t achieve employment objectives.”

He added: “The IPC promises, on the other hand, are very surprising and extremely refreshing, showing a strong understanding of national issues and practical, economically literate, solutions. Their manifesto focuses on practical ways to create jobs, unleash the private sector through entrepreneurship, generate significant savings in public funds and from national resources with a smaller government and increased measures to prevent theft and corruption. From an economic perspective, there’s no comparison between the two.”