Making A Better World - Milton Louw

Tjitunga Elijah Ngurare wrote: Just wondering: is tribal unity the same as national unity in Namibia or Africa? In other words, is our being wambos, kavangos, hereros, damaras, namas, caprivians, basters, coloureds, twanas, afrikaners, germans or english in Namibia more important than being Namibians and our being Namibians more relevant to being Africans: what is your honest opinion? I start by addressing the words of Albert Einstein, “He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist.” I must first address mistakes that I have made in my feeble attempts at contributing to the nationhood of our beloved land during the past twenty odd years. I have thought it unimportant where my family comes from, what their cultures and beliefs were, and often thought these were to be considered and ultimately rejected as part of their living in a past dominated by the racial classification given by the system of Apartheid. Who I am is not dictated by our external environment, ...

A recent article of the Namibian newspaper (July 2010), quotes a study which has found that "Regulators need to up their game". The study "expressed concern about the conduct of the industry and has warned that the reputation of the Bank of Namibia (BoN) and the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) will suffer unless they step up supervision." In the study, mention is made of certain insurance companies that make use of misleading advertising when offering products as "free". This has to be a wake up call to us as consumers. As a lobby group, we have regularly been contacted by customers who do not receive the service they expected when they bought the products as advertised. A common complaint is about the legal insurance product so widely advertised in our newspapers, radio and television. In these adverts, the consumer is made to believe that a monthly premium will give them access to legal assistance should the need arise....

Black Economic Empowerment is about enlarging participation in the economy of the country. It's a tool to create wealth and opportunity to people who were previously excluded and achieved through partnership between white and black business people. Namibia has gone through various political changes over the past two centuries. One thing however is always constant. Once the political change occurs, there is a realisation that political independence means very little without economic ownership change. When the English ruled over Southern Africa they had the economic might. The Afrikaner took over and had to create state institutions such as the “Eerste Nasionale Ontwikkelings Korporasie” (ENOK or First National Development Corporation) to allow Afrikaner businessmen to get a share of the economic pie. The also created other institutions that should be supported by their people to become as powerful as the English ones, for example banks and insurance companies (Sanlam, Santam, etc....

Windhoek, Namibia  26th May 2010  Mihe Gaomab II is the Secretary and CEO of the Namibia Competition Commission. He is the Founding President of the Namibia Economic Society and remains an honorary member. This Article was adapted from a NES speech presented at a Seminar on BEE in South Africa organized by DELTACON, a BEE Auditing and Verification Company on the 4th November 20009.  Madam Moderator and Facilitator Distinguished Panelists Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning and allow me from the onset to thank NES for making it possible for me to present to you a contemporary yet crucial topic which is the Black Economic Empowerment in Namibia. This presentation of this topic is pioneering in the sense that I have been requested to present the relevance of BEE from a Competition Policy and Law perspective. Competition Policy and Law in Namibia As you are aware, at independence, Namibia realized that it faces developmental challenges b...

THE RELEVANCE OF BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT (BEE) TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPETITION POLICY AND LAW IN NAMIBIA - IS IT AN IMPERATIVE? MIHE GAOMAB II Windhoek, Namibia 26th May 2010 Mihe Gaomab II is the Secretary and CEO of the Namibia Competition Commission. He is the Founding President of the Namibia Economic Society and remains an honorary member. This Article was adapted from a NES speech presented at a Seminar on BEE in South Africa organized by DELTACON, a BEE Auditing and Verification Company on the 4th November 20009. Madam Moderator and Facilitator Distinguished Panelists Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning and allow me from the onset to thank NES for making it possible for me to present to you a contemporary yet crucial topic which is the Black Economic Empowerment in Namibia. This presentation of this topic is pioneering in the sense that I have been requested to present the relevance of BEE from a Competition Policy and Law perspective. Com...

Charlotte writes to Consumer Protection group: Are our Educational Institutions simply ripping us off?? Is the Price of Education a Realistic reflection of what we get for money? Are universities (and private institutes) in Namibia in it for the education or the money? Private Institutions of Learning Our constitution states: (4) All persons shall have the right, at their own expense, to establish and to maintain private schools, or colleges or other institutions of tertiary education: provided that: (a) such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are registered with a Government department in accordance with any law authorising and regulating such registration; (b) the standards maintained by such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are not inferior to the standards maintained in comparable schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education funded by the State; Tertiary education schools are mushrooming all over the country. They provide e...