Staff Reporter
SWANU president Tangeni Iijambo together with a small delegation paid a courtesy call on State House where he met up with President Hage Geingob to discuss pertinent matters such as the choosing of a new Genocide Envoy for the continuing Nama/Ovaherero genocide talks.
Iijambo stated that the SWANU party last month wrote a letter to President Geingob to discuss the conglomerate of issues facing the country, such as education, debt and the genocide issue.
Iijambo noted that government should choose a new envoy which will lead genocide talks but noted that this should be done with the full consultation of all the affected parties.
Touching on public debt, Iijambo stated that the level of public debt has reached an unprecedented level and this is something that the government is very much aware of.
He added that public debt is projected to rise to N$140 million in the 2022/23 financial year and will remain at an increasing level over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
Iijambo further highlighted that the main concern is that external debt is way above the benchmark as percentage of GDP.
“This is a clear reflection of borrowing from international institutions. We are all aware of the pandemic that lead to these borrowings. It has been witnessed in some African countries that loans from some countries come with heavy conditions where some of the national assets in the country are attached as conditions of loans. Should that be the case for Namibia, it will be detrimental to our beautiful country, as our sovereignty will be compromised and our political and economic decision-making will be in the hands of the Breton Woods Institution,” Iijambo said.
On natural resource management, Iijambo said that business cannot continue as usual.
“We are mindful of your interview with Al Jazeera. However, we would like to commend you for your response. We can’t celebrate while we do not wholly own our resource. Since independence, Namibia has not completely enjoyed the benefits of our natural resources. It is true that we have appendages in our own resource management. It could not be true that we had to be satisfied with a 10% shareholding in our mining projects,” Iijambo said.
