President Hifikepunye Pohamba excited the nation when he launched the mass housing initiative this week, under which 185 000 houses are to be constructed by the year 2030.
We are reminded of the pomp and fanfare that accompanied the launch of the Targeted Intervention Programme for Employment and Economic Growth (Tipeeg) three years ago, with nearly N$10 billion committed to an initiative that was to create 104 000 jobs.
An awesome initiative in principle, Tipeeg stumbled in its infancy. Nobody talks about it anymore, just like nobody has given the nation a comprehensive report on how much of the allocated funds has been used, and how many direct or indirect jobs were created.
We have seen here and there ad hoc updates, but they were not detailed enough for the nation to understand whether there was any real movement towards the goal that Tipeeg had intended to achieve.
It was the same as Vision 2030. That too has become another exciting theory of how this country supposedly will be industrialised by the year 2030.
Since its inception, there has never been any regular report on how much progress has been made and in what areas. Similarly, there is no specific institution that is mandated solely to monitor progress and implementation of projects geared towards achieving Vision 2030.
The mass housing initiative is, therefore, a reminder of how sluggish our approach to national development has been over the years.
This is not just another promise by the government to its citizens. It is a project to which billions of our tax dollars will be committed.
Responsibility and accountability have become rare commodities in our country. In the case of Tipeeg, for example, we need a thorough audit detailing how each and every cent of the allocated money has been used thus far.
Similarly, an auditor must be appointed to continuously monitor the mass housing project for the next 16 years until 2030.
The auditing process must include regular (ideally annual) feedback to the public as to how many houses have been constructed during the period under review, where they were built and at what cost.
The amount remaining in the kitty must also be publicly known, so that the citizenry is not left with questions and fear of whether there are still funds to quench their housing thirst.
Let the past mistakes be the lessons for this new initiative.
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