This week Prime Minister Nahas Angula announced the so-called re-assignment, re-deployment and re-alignment of key accounting officers known as Permanent Secretaries (PS’s). Some rightly dubbed it ‘old wine in new bottles’ and I agree for several reasons.

The re-shuffling of top ranking officials seems to have no significance in Namibia, nor is it a yardstick that top guns look forward to as a barometer to gauge their proficiencies or failures in service-delivery to the nation. The whole purpose of restructuring was initially used to settle scores between the Head of State and Ministers seen as renegades, or those out of favor with the highest office of authority. During Pohamba’s reign re-shuffling has not only been infrequent, but has become a mere camaraderie exercise to ensure that comrades, even those accused of gross-negligence and corruption, are protected and shielded from public scrutiny.
The latest re-alignment is perplexing in that anomalies are not deciphered, but shifted around like a soccer ball. It smacks of window-dressing from a President who is seen as a lame-duck and has no record of taking corrupt and incompetent officials to task, let alone acting on his hot-air talk about getting tough on corruption, now endemic in the government and the private sector in Namibia.
It appears that political appointees in Namibia are not indispensable after all and have by implication of such shoddy re-shuffling, declared themselves as untouchable frontrunners for life, despite their weaknesses that promote corruption and the non-delivery of services to the people who elect them to office. No Minister, deputy or PS should be indispensable in Namibia. The latest reshuffling is a clear indication of a government that is based on primitive, blind loyalty and partisan politics rather than service-delivery to the nation.  The President and his Prime Minister have enough viable contenders within the ruling party to choose from to run government ministries and agencies, other than the parochial ruling party apparatchiks.
The team that is running government at the moment is hardly the A-team of President Pohamba, but was indeed an inheritance from the former president Sam Nujoma. Reshuffling should be the president’s prerogative to relieve non-performing public servants from office. It is not an opportunity to be pretending to be doing something about service-delivery, poverty and corruption in Namibia.
President Pohamba and his Prime Minister must seriously ponder their legacy when their term of office ends in two years. They are currently imposing old customs on the younger generation who are in a serious predicament as unemployment of about 60%, is among the highest in the world.
The redeployment of PSs as announced by Citizen Angula does match the biblical adage; “old wine in a new bottle.” The move concretises the belief among the general public that service-delivery and combating corruption is not a priority of the ruling elite.
As they say, you can’t tell a book by its cover. However, the latest reshuffle is confusing Namibians who are serious about the development of our country. It is nothing but an intrinsic old value being packaged in a new box that deceptively creates false hope in a government seemingly interested in poverty eradication, economic prosperity, accountability and the creation of jobs for the unemployed masses. The Chinese have a wise saying: “if you want to make fresh tea, you must first clean the teapot.”