Copyright namibian
There is a particular brand of privilege so normalised in Namibia that we barely recognise it as corruption any more. It doesn’t involve brown envelopes or Swiss bank accounts. It requires no elaborate schemes or falsified documents. It is as simple as a phone call. Need a passport urgently? Ring your cousin at home affairs. Tax query giving you headaches? Your university mate works at the receiver of revenue. Business permit stuck in bureaucratic limbo? Your sister’s husband is a director in the relevant ministry. Like magic, or rather, like the well-oiled machinery of nepotism, your problem evaporates, while dozens of other Namibians remain standing in the queue you’ve just bypassed. This is the invisible infrastructure that props up our current system. And it is precisely why meaningful transformation in Namibia remains perpetually on the horizon – always promised, never delivered. Here is an uncomfortable truth: Those with the power to transform our systems have no incentive to do so, because they never experience those systems’ failures. When you can solve any bureaucratic nightmare with a phone call, why would you prioritise digitising services? When your children never wait in a hospital queue, why would you ensure public healthcare is properly funded? When your connections guarantee swift service delivery, why invest in making processes efficient for everyone? The ruling class – and let us be honest about who this includes: senior civil servants, politically connected families, the business elite with government ties, and the relatives of ministers and directors – live in a parallel Namibia. In their Namibia, government services work. Problems get resolved. The machinery responds. Meanwhile, the average Namibian mother takes a day off work she cannot afford to lose, arranges childcare, travels to a government office, only to be told the system is down, the officer is at lunch, the required form has changed, or she’s in the wrong queue entirely. She returns the next day. And perhaps the next. If she complains too strongly, she’s met with contempt by officials who face no consequences for their behaviour. This is not merely inefficiency. It is a design, a feature, not a flaw, of a system that serves those with connections while punishing those without. I challenge Namibia’s decision-makers, leaders, and connected elite to engage in genuine introspection: When last did you stand in a government queue for an entire day? When did you last experience the Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to resolve an issue without knowing anyone ‘inside’? When did your elderly parent last sit for hours on an uncomfortable bench, only to be told to come back tomorrow? If you cannot remember, or if the answer is ‘never’, then you do not understand the Namibia that most citizens inhabit. And if you do not understand it, how can you possibly fix it? Transformation is not slow because problems are complex or solutions are unknown. It is slow because those empowered to implement change have insulated themselves from the very problems requiring attention. There is, however, a path forward, and it runs through technology. Properly implemented digital systems don’t care who your mother is. An online application portal doesn’t process the minister’s niece faster than the street vendor from Katutura. A well-designed queueing system cannot be bypassed by a phone call. Technology, when deployed with integrity, is democracy in action. Imagine this: Passport applications processed online with transparent timelines and tracking numbers; tax queries resolved through secure portals with documented responses; business permits issued automatically when requirements are met; hospital appointments scheduled digitally – no VIP queue-jumping. This isn’t utopian. Estonia conducts 99% of government services online. Rwanda digitised business registration so efficiently that it takes mere hours. Kenya’s M-Pesa revolutionised financial services by eliminating the need for ‘connections’ at banks. Technology is no silver bullet. Systems can be poorly designed, under-resourced, or deliberately sabotaged. Resistance will come from those who benefit from the current system. Every person who profits from being ‘the connection’ will find reasons why digitisation won’t work, isn’t suitable for Namibia, or must be delayed for endless consultation. But that resistance is itself proof of the problem. Any system that can be undermined by connections is a system designed to fail the majority. To Namibia’s elite, I pose these questions: What kind of country are you building for your children? One where success depends on who you know – or one where systems work for everyone? True transformation begins when those who can make a phone call choose not to. When ministers insist on experiencing the same service delivery as ordinary citizens. When directors stand in the queue – not as a performance, but as a diagnostic act, a way to see what truly needs fixing. And transformation accelerates when we build systems that make those phone calls irrelevant. Systems that work not because of who you know, but because of what you deserve as a citizen. The queue is where transformation begins. Until Namibia’s ruling class is willing to stand in it, we will keep going in circles – making speeches about change while the connected few skip to the front of the line, one phone call at a time. – Job Angola
