{"id":21232,"date":"2022-06-03T16:23:51","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T16:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/decentralisation-hindrance-a-betrayal-to-the-rural-masses"},"modified":"2022-06-03T16:37:44","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T16:37:44","slug":"decentralisation-hindrance-a-betrayal-to-the-rural-masses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/decentralisation-hindrance-a-betrayal-to-the-rural-masses","title":{"rendered":"Decentralisation hindrance a betrayal to the rural masses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Modestus Kasoma Kupembona<\/p>\n

In Namibia, decentralisation is a constitutional requirement; therefore, it is the government\u2019s mandate to work towards decentralisation.<\/p>\n

Our constitution entrenches decentralisation within a unitary state as a fundamental principle, chapter 12, dealing with regional and local government, provides for the institutionalisation and application of decentralisation.<\/p>\n

When decentralisation was given constitutional provision in 1989 at the constituent assembly, it was emphasised that it is the most effective and efficient administration for participatory democracy and shared prosperity for all.<\/p>\n

Independent Namibia has many problems \u2013 most of them emanating from the reluctance of government to decentralise.<\/p>\n

Many regional councils are situated in rural areas, where the majority of the Namibian people live, marked by large scale of poverty.<\/p>\n

Namibians, in particular the rural masses, has been the victim of centralisation of political, financial and administrative power.<\/p>\n

There are studies and research conducted that demonstrate that Namibia is a highly unequal society, high level of poverty, unfair distribution and access to resources and lack of public services in rural areas, amongst other indicators of marginalisation.<\/p>\n

This brings us to the history of decentralisation, which was promoted in an area of undemocratic authoritarian regimes that promoted inequitable, undemocratic economic and social policies that favoured the power holding elites that centralised decision making in the hands of the authoritative regimes.<\/p>\n

As a response to unmet social needs of the economically and politically marginalised grassroots movements, local community development organisations and other non-governmental organisations grew in numbers and paralysed the undemocratic authoritative regime.<\/p>\n

This background compelled even democratic countries to decentralise because they believed democracy and decentralisation go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

During the deliberation of the Namibia constitution, the ruling party opposed decentralisation, as it would create balkanisation, and opted for centralisation to promote the one Namibia one nation concept.<\/p>\n

Today, the Namibian government shares the same characteristics of the undemocratic and authoritative regime.<\/p>\n

Namibians have seen skewed development based on regionalism and ethnicity in 32 years of Independence, only those regions with the majority representatives in the central government are the biggest beneficiary of the country resources.<\/p>\n

This can easily be confirmed by statistics at the Namibia Statistic Agency on high poverty rates in the Kavango West and East, Zambezi, Omaheke and Kunene regions, which are the regions with lower representative in the executive and the legislature (National Assembly).<\/p>\n

Reports at the National Planning Commission show how projects that are planned and budgeted in these regions are being transferred to other regions; officials at the national level engages in the virementation of funds with no guidelines or valid reasons.<\/p>\n

Few examples are the Kavango West regional state hospital that was abandoned nine years ago, and the upgrading of the Katima Mulilo State hospital to an intermediate hospital abandoned four years ago.<\/p>\n

Thse are few examples amongst many economical and political marginalisation of how centralisation negatively impacted lives of people in the regions.<\/p>\n

This power holding explains the sudden accumulation of wealth of so called \u201cliberators\u201d and comrades over a short period.<\/p>\n

How did some become multi-millionaire overnight, while a third of their fellow citizens languish in poverty?<\/p>\n

Yet, when it is election time, you will hear them spouting \u2018our people; our people\u2019 without shame.<\/p>\n

Similarly, our legislators will mention the importance of decentralisation, but nothing in their drafting of legislation corroborates that importance.<\/p>\n

The executive will use words such as \u201crural empowerment\u2019 and \u2018shared prosperity\u2019 to mobilise support and votes, then they return to their lavish lifestyle and expensive suburbs to strategise ways to earn their families and businesses multi-millionaire status without years of hard work and value creation at the expense of the masses.<\/p>\n

It is unfortunate that majority of our leaders in the regions are \u2018house Negroes\u2019, who are comfortable maintaining the affairs of the new colonisers as long as they receive some of the crumbs.<\/p>\n

Councillors do not question the inexistence of a constituency budget, but we have a national budget, yet they are seen promising projects and development to the hopeless masses during campaigns. Isn\u2019t that belly politics?<\/p>\n

How long will the centre hold if decentralisation and meaningful wealth redistribution are not addressed as matters of urgency?<\/p>\n

The rural masses have prayed for justice, equality and freedom but that prayer was never answered by the executive, legislature and judiciary; this is evident to everyone.<\/p>\n

Decentralisation hindrance is a betrayal to the rural masses for 32 years. What we are confident as the rural masses is our ability to recognise this solemn truth and bring about a revolution to the status quo.<\/p>\n

People in the regions deserve better lives like any other Namibian in their country of birth.<\/p>\n

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

Africa-Press – Namibia. Modestus Kasoma Kupembona In Namibia, decentralisation is a constitutional requirement; therefore, it is the government\u2019s mandate to work towards decentralisation. Our constitution entrenches decentralisation within a unitary state as a fundamental principle, chapter 12, dealing with regional and local government, provides for the institutionalisation and application of decentralisation. When decentralisation was given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":21231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-21232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nDecentralisation hindrance a betrayal to the rural masses - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Modestus Kasoma Kupembona In Namibia, decentralisation is a constitutional requirement; therefore, it is the government ...\" \/>\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\/decentralisation-hindrance-a-betrayal-to-the-rural-masses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Decentralisation hindrance a betrayal to the rural masses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Modestus Kasoma Kupembona In Namibia, decentralisation is a constitutional requirement; 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