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Misanet.com / The Namibian, 25 April - Namibian President Sam Nujoma yesterday painted a rosy picture of public governance, foreign investment, the economy and the provision of social services when he delivered his annual State of the Nation address in the National Assembly. In possibly one of his least controversial parliamentary addresses, the President appeared to be in a mellow mood as he used a shovel to accentuate the positive, and a teaspoon when it came to negatives. He set the tone at the outset, saying: "The state of our Nation is Strong. The state of our nation is Stable. The state of our nation is Manageable. Fellow Namibians, the state of our nation is full of promise." The state of the economy, he said, was "largely satisfactory". The President touched only briefly on corruption, saying the vices of wastage of public resources, corruption and theft in any form must be "discouraged and rooted out". Nujoma said government had made a "strong commitment to bring about ethical conduct among all those who are vested with public trust". He refrained from addressing incidences of corruption, in spite of a myriad of graft allegations levelled against several government departments and parastatals. Institutions facing high-level investigations like the Social Security Commission (SSC) and Roads Contractor Company (RCC) were spared in the President's State of the Nation address. Perhaps conscious of the potential damage to the growing and lucrative tourism sector, the President did pause briefly to address "negative" reports about the State-owned Namibia Wildlife Resorts Company. He said although the enterprise was set up to improve service delivery at State-owned resorts, rest camps and other tourism infrastructure, "the opposite appears to have happened". - There is a general customer dissatisfaction and reports of poor services in all areas of service delivery, Nujoma said. This state of affairs, he said, had to be brought to an end. "I urge all role players in this vital sector to ensure that Namibia offers the best services to all tourists who visit our country," he said. Nujoma also warned about bureaucratic delays hampering investment. "We are aware that there are grey areas that must be addressed. Hence, we are working hard to end the delays in the issuing of work permits, in particular, and generally making our bureaucracy responsive to investors' needs," he elaborated. He emphasised that Namibia needed to be able to respond to investors' needs in an efficient manner. "I therefore call on all Government Ministries, parastatals and private sector institutions to gear themselves to adequately respond, thus contributing towards Namibia's progression into a powerful economic force." On 'conflict' or 'blood diamonds', the President said Namibia takes the issue "very seriously" and called Namibian diamonds "development diamonds". Diamonds exported to finance the Angolan civil war have in some cases passed through Namibia. "Government has allocated vast resources and efforts towards international efforts aimed at curbing the trade in 'blood diamonds' that have been used to fuel rebel activities aimed at destabilising our continent." - At the same time, our efforts are also aimed at protecting the good image of our gem stones, he continued. "Ours are development diamonds that contribute towards the building of roads, hospitals, clinics, schools and in general, towards the economic development of our country," President Nujoma
said. By Max Hamata and Christof Maletsky, The Namibian
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