Seems the masses are more of a burden than a concern to the President?

Is, and can, a growing middle class be the answer to Namibia’s entrenched socio-economic ills, highlighted by inequalities and poverty, which seem to have been growing exponentially since independence, thereby retarding the desired socio-economic progress?

A socio-economic progress that could be considered meaningful, in the least in starting to address the deficits of colonialism in terms of advancement among especially the majority of the indigenous people, the political and ideological masses, and workers.

Yours Truly Ideologically is posing this question, prompted by indeed the genuine concern of the President expressed at the One Economy Foundation’s recent fundraiser.

Certainly the appropriate platform for Her Excellency to have raised this pertinent concern, in view of the denomination of the host fundraiser, One Economy, being far from what Namibia’s economy has been.

Which, on the contrary, has continued and been two to three or more economies.

With one economy on the one extreme that one can define as the first economy, for the previous exploiters and plunderers of Namibia’s natural wealth, and thus by capitalist design, the advantaged by the colonial apartheid capitalist system.

At the other extreme, an economy of extreme abject poverty, a legacy of colonialism, to which the majority of the indigenous populations are, have been, and continue to be condemned.

In between the two extremes are many shades. Among them falls, by Her Excellency’s own awareness and admission, the middle class.

The President seemed concerned that few of them are “empowered,” with reference to her and the middle class.

Encompassing her and others compelled to, as a matter of survival and thus continued reproduction of the system, dish out handouts to the still economically exploited, deprived, and marginalised.

It is difficult to dissect what Her Excellency may have had in mind and thought as to who the empowered were who thronged the fundraising occasion.

But it is not difficult to deduce her concept of empowerment in this regard, meaning those who may have decent jobs and thus regular income. Because of this, thus occupying the middle half of the continuum.

But most interestingly, for Her Excellency, part of the solution for the undesirable socio-economic state of being in the country lies in growing and/or adding more members to this elite club of high earners.

One endemic problem to high income earning in Namibia is that, more often than not, the income in question is not and may not be deserved.

Not to mention the fact that mostly the various professions, public and private alike, are and may be overpriced.

Meaning people on the high upper end of the remuneration ladder receiving payments which they are and may not necessarily be deserving of.

In view of the fact that such high remunerations are usually, by the design of the capitalist system, at the expense of the under-pricing and under-valuing of the labour that is as much a factor of the creation of the given wealth and/or value, through the exploitation of labour.

Not to mention the fact of whether the country can ill afford it or not.

But granted that the private sector is able to offer professionals market-related remuneration packages, which it must be emphasised cannot happen in the absence of the exploitation of labour, but rationalised and justified nevertheless, the same cannot be said about the public sector.

With stories abounding of excessive remuneration packages. A classic recent point in Namibia in this regard being the vehicle scheme of the Namibia Airports Company (NAC), which lately has been the subject of media reports and even investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Raising the spectre of what remunerations in the public sector are pegged to and how justifiable they are as they may be.

While remunerations in Namibia, be it in the public and private sector, may as yet have clear-cut justifications and/or explanations as to what they are pegged to and what justifies them, the differentials between those high up in the echelons and those down the ladder have been glaring.

Her Excellency cited the burden particularly to herself, as indeed on her fellow elite club members, of essentially dealing, to put it crudely, with beggars. Seemingly considered by Her Excellency a nuisance.

Oblivious to the fact that they are an offshoot of the exploitative capitalist system, rewarding a few presumably industrious ones and penalising at the same time those carrying the burden of production.

But what Her Excellency and fellow elite club members of high earners are and may have been experiencing is by no means confined to them. Besides being only a drop in the ocean.

Given the hordes of people who are daily struggling with the basics of life. This being a daily experience of almost every Namibian out there in the country’s sprawling townships.

Not to mention the ghettos and/or your politically convenient informal settlements, a more acceptable term and/or label to the said elite club eager to hide the real economic situation of exploitation.

Neighbours scrambling, if not scavenging, for the little available on any particular day.

If what Her Excellency sketched in a local media report represents what may be to her the presidential terms of endurance, for the lack of a better description and characterisation of the scorchedness of the Namibian people, that cannot and is not the whole picture of the attaining wretchedness in Namibia.

It seems she has not seen anything yet.