EDITORIAL McHenry Venaani – who once called for government leaders to be transported in Toyota Corollas – is a changed man.In slapdash fashion, Venaani, for a long time the lead singer of the chorus against perks accorded to government leaders, is now singing from a different hymn book - with high tempo that embraces excessive incentives for himself.
Loud is his tone of acceptance of his new perks - which include two vehicles, N$14 000 per month in fuel expenditure and a salary hike from N$700 000 to N$1 million annually.
Indeed, the bug of greed has bit the man who hoodwinked us all into thinking he was cut from a different cloth from those of his chronic wasteful detractors.
The very things he slurred are now delivered at his feet by the master of wastefulness himself, President Hage Geingob. For us, the concern is not so much that extravagant incentives have been availed to Venaani.
It is his change of tone that shocked us. And there’s a swarm of dynamics that come with his decision to accept what he pretended to stand against all this time.
First, Geingob has weakened and disoriented Venaani with approval of these perks, and – perhaps vitally – the armoury from which the Popular Democratic Movement leader fired salvos against wastefulness will slip into complete silence.