09/09/2024
The question posed by our future youth leadership at the ICT Summit is highly relevant and appropriate. When you borrow you do it for financing development and investment and not expenditure. That way you reap dividends as you sow in future. Look at Namibia now. Many corporations and titans of banking have build economies on banking and borrowing but for the right developmental focus. So borrowing is not a curse but a future development as world wide it shows. Under the nations tutelage, we borrowed from the African Development Bank (AfDB! 20 billion now we have two highway lanes and we drive and infrastructure improved. We also got borrowings and grants as a result in education, agriculture, port development and competitiveness programme. I oversee it as the Executive Director and when I came to AfDB it was only less than NAD 500 million and I know. Namibia was a tiny drop for any concessional and borrowing profile as it’s tough to get borrowing from any Bank. Believe. me. It takes considerable thought leadership, ex*****on and diplomatic and strategic interventions. But we did IT. Let’s be proud and dividends are paying off in terms of infrastructure improvement and creation. Any country in this world used borrowing funding to develop their economies including USA, UK, South Korea and Japan. We in Africa borrow to spend not invest. Let’s support the Youth thought leadership in Namibia on this. kudos.