{"id":15957,"date":"2022-03-31T17:22:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T17:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality"},"modified":"2022-03-31T17:22:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T17:22:26","slug":"swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","title":{"rendered":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Landless People\u2019s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi has blasted the national budget deliberations underway in the National Assembly, labelling the debate as a mere shadow of what an actual budget engagement should be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe qualitative issues to be discussed are often watered down and this year we have seen how the finance minister dipped the stature of the budget statement to a new low,\u201d said the outspoken former land reform deputy minister while contributing to the national budget debate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The N$61.5 billion budget was tabled by finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi last month.<\/p>\n

The 2022\/23 financial year indicated a revenue projection of N$59.7 billion, some 11.7% higher than the estimated revenue for the current financial year.<\/p>\n

Swartbooi said Shiimi has often given a thematic layout of the budget focus annually.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen this year\u2019s focus appears to be youth, and some sort of \u2018reimaging\u2019 a better future for the youth, the content and character of the theme is wasted away systematically embarrassingly in his statement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shiimi, according to Swartbooi, places a strong emphasis on what he refers to as \u201cthe consultation process\u201d with diverse stakeholders. He, on the other hand, stated that this was not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe place it on record, here and now, that we were never invited to any such consultation process. This is very unfortunate and lacks political fortitude,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said since a thematic approach is taken in the budget statement, LPM would also approach the budget debate from a particular lens.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirstly, when will the historically disadvantaged men and women, dressed up in freedom and democracy, as the token of the historic and glorious human achievement, ever live a decent life in post-colonial Namibia?\u201d Swartbooi asked the august house.<\/p>\n

He said statistics of statutory bodies established to provide avenues for economic transformation such as the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) and Agribank show that in the 2020\/2021 period, youth accessed loans worth N$82.3 million from DBN, and N$39 million from Agribank.<\/p>\n

According to Swartbooi, women stood at N$46 million for DBN and N$44 million for Agribank. He also said SMEs only managed to get N$155 million from DBN over the said period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these minute amounts, these peanuts, what is the minister of finance referring to as he attempts to locate youth as beneficiaries of this year\u2019s budget? It is sad. Who can be a beneficiary of a decent development package, if the figures above are so little?\u201d he questioned.<\/p>\n

According to him, in February this year alone, about 1 000 northern-based businesspersons delinked their enterprises from the NCCI, leading to the establishment of an independent business association, Namibian Local Business Association (Naloba).<\/p>\n

In large part, he said these businesspersons deem the government as a failure in her posture toward empowerment policies and programmes.<\/p>\n

He said the barriers toward business enterprise development, including access to affordable capital, remain stubbornly ill-addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding insult to injury is the inability of the State to allow for \u2018accumulation from below\u2019, by its liberalisation of the wholesale and retail sectors, permitting all sorts of new entrants, to compete unfairly against local businesses, in an already squeezed sector, dominated by South African outlets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Swartbooi said these are the weaknesses of liberalisation and deregulation in post-colonial Namibia, where citizens are unable to reap business opportunities, as foreign enterprises take up all the business space.<\/p>\n

Also, he said the lack of State protection through creative policy instruments for local businesses, to wave off the current headwinds, but also to stabilise and expand their business portfolios and achieve some level of economies of scale, are some of the core concerns of Naloba.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. Landless People\u2019s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi has blasted the national budget deliberations underway in the National Assembly, labelling the debate as a mere shadow of what an actual budget engagement should be. \u201cThe qualitative issues to be discussed are often watered down and this year we have seen how the finance minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":15955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8,12,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-15957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nSwartbooi slams budget debate quality - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press – Namibia. Landless People\u2019s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi has blasted the national budget deliberations underway in the National Assembly, labelling the debate as a mere shadow of what an actual budget engagement should be. \u201cThe qualitative issues to be discussed are often watered down and this year we have seen how the finance minister […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\"},\"wordCount\":618,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\",\"name\":\"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality - Namibia\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg\",\"width\":720,\"height\":493,\"caption\":\"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/\",\"name\":\"Namibia\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cfeditoren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality - Namibia","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality","og_description":"Africa-Press – Namibia. Landless People\u2019s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi has blasted the national budget deliberations underway in the National Assembly, labelling the debate as a mere shadow of what an actual budget engagement should be. \u201cThe qualitative issues to be discussed are often watered down and this year we have seen how the finance minister […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","og_site_name":"Namibia","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa","article_published_time":"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00","author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality","datePublished":"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality"},"wordCount":618,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg","keywords":["africa press","Africa Press-Namibia","namibia"],"articleSection":["all news","economy","homepage-english","policy","twitter"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality","name":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality - Namibia","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg","datePublished":"2022-03-31T17:22:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/03\/img-6245e80b82fdb.jpg","width":720,"height":493,"caption":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/swartbooi-slams-budget-debate-quality#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Swartbooi slams budget debate quality"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/","name":"Namibia","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cfeditoren"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}