By: Kelvin Chiringa
President Hage Geingob’s economic affairs advisor since 2015, John Steytler has resigned from his duties, state-house has confirmed.
No reasons have been given for his resignation while his phone was unreachable until the time of publication.
It is thus not clear whether the one-time Namibia Statistics Agency statistician general and chairperson will be joining another state entity, or the private sector.
During his time as the economic advisor, he pioneered the presidential ambitious economic blueprint, otherwise known as the Harambee Prosperity Plan.
In his last year engagement with this publication, Steytler was on record cautioning critics against quickly labelling the presidential flag-ship economic blue-print as a white elephant saying that it was still very alive.
As the Harambee Plan entered its second year, Steytler admitted that a rocky economic environment had non-the-less dealt a blow to implementation resulting in the slow down and halting of certain of its envisaged programs last year.
“I do not subscribe to the views of those critics. The Harambee Prosperity Plan is still one of the most important programs of the government, and in fact it has been incorporated in the performance agreements of ministers and ministries and has been cascaded to levels where it should be implemented,” he said.
State-house has in the meantime wished him well in his future endeavours.
He lives behind an economy that is struggling to emerge from the doldrums of stagnation and an economic model that has not reached the zenith of success as President Hage Geingob’s first term comes to its end.
