Enough rhetoric, time for action For any government to succeed there must a well-articulated plan, strategically designed to support a long term vision.
Our government adopted Vision 2030 - the country's blueprint development programme - in 2004.
Former president Sam Nujoma called this document at its launch, a perception of the future, which aims to improve the quality of life of the people of Namibia to the level of their counterparts in the developed world.
We are now a mere 13 years away and many have already questioned the scale of our ambitions as a nation.
Is Vision 2030 really attainable?
This has been the question on everyone's lips.
Yesterday President Hage Geingob launched the country's fifth National Development Plan (NDP5) at State House, which is another ambitious strategy designed to generate capital and initiatives that will transform our economy towards Vision 2030.
The N$164 billion programme has set itself the target of creating 250 000 jobs in the next five years.
As a nation we are already struggling to create sustainable jobs, with statistics released last week by the Namibia Statistics Agency indicating that the unemployment rate grew by 6% to 34%.
This shows that almost 350 000 Namibians are unemployed.
Our struggling economy has seen thousands of Namibians sent back onto the streets as job opportunities dry up.
The scale of this failure is enormous and this is compounded by the high levels of inequality already being experienced in our country.
We cannot talk about shared prosperity if we continue to pay so little attention to the poor and downtrodden of society.
Government is failing to fix education, sport, public healthcare and corruption challenges, among others. We cannot expect Namibians to share the vision of their country if they continue to feel left out.
It is time to keep away from development rhetoric without meaningful action.
The government must take a seriously review its priorities, including budgetary expectations of key areas if it really wants to succeed this time around.
It should no longer be business as usual.
Our government adopted Vision 2030 - the country's blueprint development programme - in 2004.
Former president Sam Nujoma called this document at its launch, a perception of the future, which aims to improve the quality of life of the people of Namibia to the level of their counterparts in the developed world.
We are now a mere 13 years away and many have already questioned the scale of our ambitions as a nation.
Is Vision 2030 really attainable?
This has been the question on everyone's lips.
Yesterday President Hage Geingob launched the country's fifth National Development Plan (NDP5) at State House, which is another ambitious strategy designed to generate capital and initiatives that will transform our economy towards Vision 2030.
The N$164 billion programme has set itself the target of creating 250 000 jobs in the next five years.
As a nation we are already struggling to create sustainable jobs, with statistics released last week by the Namibia Statistics Agency indicating that the unemployment rate grew by 6% to 34%.
This shows that almost 350 000 Namibians are unemployed.
Our struggling economy has seen thousands of Namibians sent back onto the streets as job opportunities dry up.
The scale of this failure is enormous and this is compounded by the high levels of inequality already being experienced in our country.
We cannot talk about shared prosperity if we continue to pay so little attention to the poor and downtrodden of society.
Government is failing to fix education, sport, public healthcare and corruption challenges, among others. We cannot expect Namibians to share the vision of their country if they continue to feel left out.
It is time to keep away from development rhetoric without meaningful action.
The government must take a seriously review its priorities, including budgetary expectations of key areas if it really wants to succeed this time around.
It should no longer be business as usual.