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/ 16 November 2007
Namibia’s ruling Swapo Party plans to amend the country’s Constitution at its end-November congress to do away with the position of prime minister and create the position of deputy president instead, sources said this week. This would ensure Swapo’s leadership, still dominated by former president Sam Nujoma, tightens its grip over a government accused of ineptitude, graft and corruption.
Former Namibian president Sam Nujoma formally announced this week that he would not seek re-election as president of the ruling Swapo party in a move that has been interpreted as an attempt to avert a looming split among the party’s rank and file. His announcement, made on Monday at an emergency Swapo politburo meeting, ended months of speculation that 77-year-old Nujoma, who stepped aside as state president in 2005, would seek re-election in 2009.
In a surprise move, Namibian Prime Minister Nahas Angula reshuffled 10 permanent secretaries — the government’s top public servants — this week to speed up delivery in key economic sectors and halt the rot in politically sensitive services such as health.
Will former Namibian president Sam Nujoma simply fade into the background of Swapo — or will he succumb to pressures from his hard-line loyalists to hang on to the ruling party’s presidency for another five years? With Swapo’s central committee due to meet this weekend to discuss the date and procedures for its annual congress, which will likely determine Nujoma’s future role.
A campaign by a hard line faction in Namibia’s ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation to return former president Sam Nujoma to power has taken a hit in the past week as the faction has found itself isolated from the rest of the party and accused of self-promotion.
Working closely with the Central Intelligence Organisation’s directorate of counter-intelligence, Zanu-PF has been setting up secret death squads comprising members of the National Youth Service training programme. The squads petrol bomb political opponents’ homes, commit acts of sabotage and torture opponents to President Robert Mugabe’s regime, a former member of one such death squad said this week.
Senior members of the Italian Mafia have obtained an interest in Namibia’s nascent diamond-cutting industry, using front companies to buy an existing but unused diamond-cutting and polishing licence, an 18-month-long investigation has revealed. Company documents show that the Italian criminal syndicate appears to have been aided and abetted in obtaining their licences by Sam Nujoma’s youngest son.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has bought himself a few more months’ financial wiggle room after Namibia granted him soft loans worth US-million last week. During Mugabe’s four-day state visit to Namibia, the Namibian government announced that its power utility, Nampower, was to loan between – and -million to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
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/ 23 February 2007
One hundred years after diamonds were first discovered in southern Namibia, an agreement reached with De Beers at the end of last month will see local diamond production offered to local cutting plants for the first time. According to the five-year agreement, 16% of sales will be offered to a dozen local cutting plants.
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/ 2 February 2007
Three years from now, will Namibians accept an 81-year-old Sam Nujoma as their next president, possibly for the rest of his natural life, if he so chooses? Like the proverbial 300-pound gorilla in the corner that no one wants to talk about, Sam Nujoma’s ambitions to return to the office he was forced to relinquish in 2004 because of a two-term limit are casting a shadow over Namibian politics.