In 2008 the Swapo Party Youth League was a tough-talking radical force to be reckoned with.
As Emma Theofelus entered primary school, the SPYL was actively involved in shaping the national agenda. They visited rural communities and Windhoek’s informal settlements and wondered out loud why Namibians can’t have dignified housing or access to affordable urban land.
Many of the affluent residents of Windhoek found out about the existence of the various peculiarly named informal settlements like Tlabanelo, One Nation-Oshitenda, Okahandja Park, Ombwayalyata Otina and 7de Laan, through their public statements.
They had a press conference so often it felt like a weekly appointment for young journalists. The topics varied, but their agenda primarily focused on what they called bread-and-butter issues: provision of water, electricity, education, housing, rural development and youth economic empowerment.
The media briefings were at times explosive, and the “conveyor belt of leaders” for the ruling party took no prisoners.
They agitated for delivering the promised prosperity to the downtrodden of the country.
They feared no one and would butt heads with their principals without fear or favour. After all, they remained “unwavering, uncompromising and patriotically stubborn”.
Some Cabinet ministers and senior Swapo functionaries felt their wrath.
Then President Hifikepunye Pohamba appeared to have been forced to move two of his ministers, Willem Konjore, then environment minister and Helmut Angula, who was the director general of the National Planning Commission, because of a feud with the SPYL.
At the time the youth league was upset and accused the two ministers of trying to “sell the Etosha National Park to the Americans” through the Millennium Challenge Account, which injected US$305 million in donor funding into Namibia. The young leaders accused the two ministers of misleading the Cabinet.
Reports at the time indicated that Veikko Nekundi, who was first SPYL secretary for economic affairs and later deputy secretary, made Pohamba’s blood boil with his radical pronouncements. Pohamba, allegedly, on more than one occasion asked the party leadership to call Nekundi and the entire SPYL leadership to order. As the president, he too occasionally faced the threats of being recalled if he was not toeing the party line.
They called on the government to empower the youth, especially the rural youth. In 2009 the group rejected then Prime Minister Nahas Angula’s attempt to draft a Black economic empowerment framework, called the Transformation of Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (Tesef). Apart from the fact that it was not radical enough to force white-owned businesses to partner up with their Black compatriots. The youth leaders also wanted the policy to explicitly have Black economic empowerment as the name.
The only problem is that despite their vibrancy, they had no seat at the decision-making tables.
None in the Politburo, none in the National Assembly, let alone the Cabinet, but they had about two seats in the party’s Central Committee. This meant that many of their suggestions were ignored, and they had no power to affect change at government level. A source of great frustration for the young, impatient patriots.
Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare led this ‘gang’ as the SPYL secretary. Works minister Veikko Nekundi, was his right-hand man. Deputy Prime Minister Natangwe Iithete, home affairs minister Lucia Iipumbu and justice minister Fillemon ‘Wise’ Immanuel were all part of the SPYL leadership from 2007 to 2015. But now they make up five of the newly sworn-in Cabinet. Paula Kooper from the Swapo backbenches was also an integral member of this cohort, and she was specifically instrumental in halting the forced removal of Mix settlement residents.
The opposition benches in the eighth National Assembly also harbour members of that illustrious cohort. Landless People’s Movement’s Bernadus Swartbooi, Affirmative Repositioning’s Job Amupanda and Independent Patriots for Change’s Immanuel Nashinge all formed part of the Ngurare-led SPYL leadership.
While Swanu’s Evilastus Kaaronda was not in the SPYL leadership, he stood by them and worked closely with the gang as the then firebrand secretary general of the NUNW, the country’s then largest trade union federation, which is affiliated to Swapo. At some point they forced the TransNamib board to reinstate suspended CEO Titus Haimbili, with a crippling strike led by Kaaronda and the SPYL.
Today the toi-toing tekkies have made way for formal shoes as the gang finds itself with a seat at the table. Albeit not on the same side.
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who at the time was considered their foe, has expressed her confidence in their ability by appointing five of the group in her Cabinet.
Although the opportunity comes nearly 20 years after the youthful cadres started making waves, they now have the opportunity to show the country that they are going to go above and beyond to ensure service delivery, rural development, youth empowerment and economic emancipation “in our lifetime”, as they called it.
It is their time to show that they will not fall victim to the “politics of the belly” they so despised back then.
Namibia, strangely, faces the same challenges it battled in 2008. The situation might now be even worse. Unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is on steroids, while failures to deliver on housing, sanitation and healthcare all contributed to about half of the population being unemployed and living in squalid conditions in slums with little access to municipal services.
Since 2008, Namibia still has no Black economic empowerment law or framework. After Nahas Angula’s Tesef was abandoned, it was the responsibility of Former Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila who took over in 2015, to give it a try. As an economist and former finance minister, the smart money was on her to succeed. She came up with the New Equitable Economic Empowerment Framework (Neeef). Even Neeef was orphaned and aborted before any midwife could take a closer look.
The marginalised Black, especially the youth who are not politically connected, still only dream of participating in the mainstream economy.
However, the ‘gang’ now has the opportunity to deliver the promised prosperity in our lifetime they made nearly 17 years ago, and the responsibility for finalising a Black economic empowerment framework is now in Ngurare’s hands.
By the second week in office, the government has made two major announcements: the directive to ensure senior government officials will have to make use of public health facilities and formalisation of informal settlements and the So far, so good. For the later announcement Ngurare came dressed ready for work in blue overalls and a yellow hard hat.
All eyes will be on how Ngurare, the head of government business in the National Assembly, will have to build synergies and convince former allies like Swartbooi and Amupanda to support the government’s developmental agenda.
After all, they all once vowed to improve the living conditions of ordinary Namibians to first-world standards.
