The Executive Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says some Namibians believe that corruption is not much of a concern in the country.
Graham Hopwood is now advising locals to assist in preventing corruption from becoming worse.
“I know that some people say it’s not so bad, but the point is, we need to stop it getting any worse because we don’t want to be a sort of stereotypical African country that is endemically corrupt. We can prevent corruption now in Namibia, and then we will be in a better position to develop the country going forward.”
Hopwood and his team have been running a series of anti-corruption conferences countrywide.
The idea is to mobilise communities, particularly young people, to get involved in the fight against corruption.
IPPR’s Executive Director says that, despite corruption concerns, Namibia has not dealt with a lot of the cases.
“We have a lot of concerns about the SME bank and its collapse in 2017. We’ve seen civil action in the courts but not prosecutions of the people involved there. The Kora Awards and the GIPF have been in place for a number of years. I think a lot of Namibians feel that there hasn’t really been justice because cases don’t seem to be fully investigated or there haven’t really been resolutions in the courts. So, the concern with Namibia is that we are not dealing with these issues very effectively.”
Hopwood says it is about time Namibians become more determined to hold the corrupt to account and make sure that justice is served.
He emphasised that once the whistleblower law becomes operational, more corrupt practices will be exposed, which can also serve as a deterrent to would-be culprits.
IPPR also stressed the importance of the Access to Information (ATI) Act and how the average citizen can use it to fight corruption.
“ATI is not just about journalists trying to get documents or researchers trying to get information for research. The ATI law is about the ordinary public, and they would be able to use it to access all kinds of documents related to governance, for example, local and regional governance. What their local authorities are up to sort of has more accountability.”
Hopwood says the government has its job cut out for them once the act becomes operational. It’s not going to be business as usual.
“I don’t think the government has fully realised the responsibilities here. They will have to make a lot of info, which is currently difficult to get hold of, like GRN licenses and contracts and permits with the private sector. The government would need to make these documents public. It’s going to be a huge change in the mindset of the government and civil servants to be able to achieve this. Hopefully next year, we can start to prepare and train people to make info a lot more available and then get the public involved.”
The last anti-corruption conference of the year took place in Rundu, Kavango East Region, just a few days before the Anti-Corruption Commission opened its fifth office, also in the same town.
The office in Rundu will also serve the Kavango West and Zambezi regions.