Namibia is too broke to feed its soldiers. It cannot pay the electricity bill to light their barracks.
The troops are being sent on leave.
Foreign travel by ministers and officials has been banned.
Namibian President Hage Geingob insists his country is not broke. It still has money to spend.
But it’s running record current account and Budget defecits.
The inflow from the Southern African Customs Union has plunged.
Namibia gets 30% of its revenue from this source.
Economists say this happened in 2011 after the global economic downturn.
SACU revenues are expected to rebound to about R60 billion this year.
Economists say this is the time for Namibia to build a stabilization fund – and to realize it is spending more than a small developing country should.
Namibia is too broke to feed its soldiers
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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.
Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.
Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.
Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.
He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.
He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.
He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.
In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.
In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.
He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.
Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.
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