By: Kelvin Chiringa
A local economic firm is now appealing for a strong leadership to stand up tall and rescue the country from the jaws of a weakening economy which recently received a bad rating by Fitch.
Central to rooting the country out of the weak growth which has persisted since the crush of the construction sector, is the need to tackle corruption, Simonis Storm’s Indileni Nanghonga said.
This publication has recently reported that The Anti-Corruption Commission of Namibia received at total of 278 cases of alleged corrupt activities around the country from April 2018 to date.
The ACC director said of those cases, 32 were submitted to the Prosecutor General’s office.
He has appealed to the generality of citizens as well as offices, ministries and agencies and private institutions to take their administrative responsibilities serious if there is a serious desire to combat corruption and maladministration in Namibia.
“Namibia is our only home, if we allow the economy to be destroyed, we all become the victims, and there will be nothing left for the generations to come,” he said.
The economist has also said the country should further direct focus on the stabilisation of the government debt-to-GDP ratio.
“In addition, improving strategic service infrastructure, rapid SOE reforms, improving capital allocations, attracting talent and skills, removal of policy uncertainties to try and win back foreign investors and investor confidence, rent-seeking behaviour shackled and a booming commodity price environment,” she said.
In the meantime Simonis Storm has noted that the commercial bank liquidity position in Namibia started off on a back foot in the beginning of 2019 with an average of -284.0k to date.
The steep drop in the liquidity position can partially be attributed to lower government spending in the beginning of the year and an underestimation of the liquidity outflow by commercial banks, as indicated by the bank of Namibia.
“Despite the low liquidity we continue to see high demand in the bonds. We are of the view that bond yields will remain suppressed for the half year of 2019 mainly on the back of the 45% compliance to the domestic asset requirement by end of March 2019 before it normalise in the second half of the year,” said the firm.
