By: Kandjengo kaMkwanyooka
It puzzles me when Namibians challenge and scrutinise any tender allocated to fellow Namibians.
I truly want to understand the ideological basis for such scrutiny: isn’t that what we want or have been yearning for?
I am in total awe of how we are economically and ideologically confused. We are throwing words around like beneficiation, domestication, and growth at home, but as soon as a local person gets a tender, we are up in arms.
This does not make economic sense and contradicts our aspiration to empower those who are economically excluded and increase our locally-made product portfolio.
The Fabupharm tender case and others serve as my case studies. Let us set aside the beneficial ownership aspect for now – not because it is unimportant, but because today, I want us to focus on industrialization and keeping the dollar here.
We aspire to add value and domesticate the production of goods that we have the ability to produce locally (through our skill set, raw materials, and technology) as part of our import substitution strategy.
If this is the true economic scenario we want to achieve, then why are we against any tender allocated to our local brothers and sisters, especially those with sound business solutions to domesticate production?
We have created a tendering process that is supposed to pick the best individuals and companies to create value for us, right?
That law has also been given empowerment provisions to support those who are willing to implement the country’s industrialization aspirations through deliberate efforts.
That is why I want to commend the Central Procurement Board’s decision to ask the Medical Authority if there is anyone or any company capable of manufacturing pharmaceutical products in Namibia.
This, in my assessment, is a deliberate effort we have been preaching about, not mere wishes and prayers for value addition to happen without any effort.
The Board even rejected the Bid Evaluation Committee’s recommendation to cancel the tender and instead instructed them to ensure they get the necessary documentation of the said company.
With the highest authority, I recommend we adopt this approach for every tender. We should rigorously search for Namibians capable of delivering on our industrialisation dreams and aspirations and empower them deliberately.
It doesn’t make economic sense for us to channel our national budget outside through the health, education, and work ministries at all.
To date, we are just screaming and wishing for beneficiation and value addition rather than being deliberate in empowerment efforts and ensuring that our laws have enabling provisions to process the economic change we seek.
Unless we truly have comprehension issues on economic building and effective empowerment schemes, we will keep cycling through debates about who should be awarded a tender despite their being Namibian and showing capacity.
We may question the process, but I think we are economically sabotaging ourselves. When a tender is awarded to a Namibian, it is challenged and delayed, but the opposite seems to occur for foreign-awarded tenders.
I suggest we challenge the Procurement Act itself if we have issues with the awarding process rather than sabotaging and shaming deliberate efforts to put capable and willing Namibians at the economic forefront.
NB: The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board or The Villager and its owners.
