Namibia feeds off SA’s strengths and shortfalls

Kevin Mayhew WHEN YOU visit Namibia your guide book tells you that you will be choked by shifting sand at just about every turn on roads that snake the country – but you would hardly expect to find its premier port choking on water. There are no perennial rivers coursing the interior of its 824 269 square kilometers after all. But it happened…the water system of Walvis Bay could not take the level of aqua-manna dumped on the land and the Kuiseb River flooded in January this year, overwhelming the water supply infrastructure of the town. The Walvis-ites did not flinch; it was merely a temporary setback and they went about their business in the same determined fashion as before. The country’s postal service provider, Nampost, must have known something. Later this year it is to introduce a special stamp to celebrate the scarce water of the land, according to manager philately services, Hannelie Maasdorp, standing in front of enlarged presses of commemorative stamps of events and people in the past – including those for its 15th year of independence last year. This year Namibia is awash with other anniversaries – including two very relevant to transport. It is the 100th anniversary of the introduction of its first rail link (also to be commemorated with a stamp) that was the steel tracked seed of what is today Trans Namib. Its national carrier, Air Namibia, heralds in its 60th year. But unfortunately this event does not take place with the airline on a high as it struggles to survive and is presently being bailed out by the government to stay in business. Air Namibia chief executive officer, Kosmas Egumbo, says that things will come right, “but it will not be overnight”. February, the month when we visited, should have been a reasonable month for the beleaguered airline as conferences seemed to be the order of the day. The prime one was the 4th Intermodal Africa 2006 Conference and Exhibition in Swakopmund – a thoroughly delightful (and now expensive) little place in which to live by the sea that serves as something of a luxury dormitory for Walvis Bay 30kms away. The 250 delegates to this conference were there to take a two-day look at the intermodal transport progress that is being made in Africa and more specifically Namibia and were treated to a host of top speakers. It says something that Namibia could secure such an important conference, but it is a country seeking to promote itself as a conference and resort destination – and it generally gets what it targets. It even managed to attract the Game Rangers’ Association of Africa to the country for its third annual meet to discuss elements of game ranging and no doubt hunting – trophy hunting is one of the country’s less obvious exports and already generates an annual export value of over $N1m (R1m), so maybe it is not so far off the mark. It was heartening to note that one of the conferences that will be held in April this year is the first local anti-corruption conference to deal with the major problem that is not peculiar to Namibia in Africa – lack of corporate governance. Giving this greater impetus was the inauguration of the Anti-Corruption Commission by President Hifikepunye Pohamba that aims to detect and punish those on the take, whether in the public or private sector. In yet another corporate governance fillip, the premier southern African award for corporate reporting excellence introduced into Namibia last year, the ICSA/JSE/motiv Annual Report Awards, will be expanded this year to include both the public sector and listed companies. The nine listed companies on the Namibian Stock Exchange have been enjoying a bumper time as elements of the economy have been steaming ahead, according to the chief executive officer of the Namibia Stock Exchange, John Mandy. Also steaming ahead is the tendency to sign all manner of Memoranda of Understanding and co-operation agreements to drive future growth. From training programmes with the National Ports Authority of South Africa to a co-operation agreement with Limpopo Province of South Africa there is a lot of activity on the co-operation front. Namibia even strengthened ties with Czechoslovakia through the Namibia-Czech Business Forum with an agreement on economic co-operation. But, no matter how much Namibia strengthens its ties with other countries, its economic fate still remains linked to the economic performance of South Africa. Namibia expects positive spin-offs from South Africa’s 2006 budget. With the South African economy set to grow by 5%, economists believe that Namibia will benefit. The Namibian budget is influenced by the South African budget as the two are in a common monetary area and are members of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu). Namibia imports more than 85% of its products from South Africa. First National Bank of Namibia economist, Martin Mwinga, said that the R19bn tax relief given by South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel would benefit the Namibian economy as South African tourism would increase and South African’s would buy more Namibian export products. “As there is no pressure to increase interest rates in South Africa, we traditionally have a similar situation transmitted to Namibia,” he said. Lately, this dependence has proven a boom as well as a definite drag on its performance that is leading to strident calls for it to wean itself off its powerful neighbour for products and services critical to the independence of its economy. There are dark clouds over the South African contribution to Namibia’s success. The power outage problems in South Africa are spilling over into Namibia as South Africa struggles to supply itself, let alone its neighbours. Alternative sources for electricity have also been highlighted as Namibia is ranked among the countries with the highest solar radiation potential in the world. “What is required is a paradigm shift and we have to see where renewable sources of energy make sense, and where traditional sources make sense but the country lacks the technical capacity to fully exploit its generally favourable position to introduce solar power,” according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy’s chief technical advisor on renewable energy, Prem Jain. Namibia also felt the recent shortage of certain fuels that South Africa experienced as its supplies also dwindled from its South African sources. Already Total has called for a greater strategic reserve capacity to be established for fossil-based fuel to enable it to ride out South African hiccups or miscalculations.