Monique Adams

KEETMANSHOOP

The Landless Peoples Movement Youth Command Element has called on the government to pull up its socks in order to save Namibians from poverty.This call was made last week at a lecture, which had LPM leader Bernadus Swartbooi as the keynote speaker, that was held under theme ‘Politics of Betrayal: How Namibia is Being Stolen’.

The lecture alleged that resources in Namibia are being looted by the ruling elite.

Topics discussed included the mushrooming of informal settlements, income distribution between racial groups, regional poverty indicator reports, national resources endowment and national ownership, foreign direct investment and corruption indicators.

No development

Swartbooi said factories in Namibia are at the level where they were in 1984.

Rural areas have not been developed, he said, adding that it resulted in an economic and social imbalance leading to rural-urban migration.

“What will it take for Namibians by virtue of their own living conditions to go to elections and vote differently because the living in shacks is known as structural violence,” Swartbooi said.

Swartbooi claimed that the education system in Namibia has been deformed. He said suddenly a child has the option to leave school after grade 11, giving the child an option to voluntarily stop their education.

With this the poor will remain poorer and a new generation of uneducated Namibians will emerge, he said.

“The Fishrot saga is one of many cases in Namibia that have revealed the deep-rooted corruption in the country and has proven that ‘some animals are more important than others,’ as George Orwell rightly put in his book ‘Animal Farm’,” LPM youth commander Duminga Ndala said.

Ndala called upon all structures of the LPM Youth Command Element to initiate more events like this, to remain steady and committed to the core values of the organisation and fight towards true economic emancipation in their lifetime.