IMAGE: The Namibian / Namibia Fact Check
The ruling party politician wants every Namibian over 25 to get N$1 million but his figures don’t add up, experts say
Ruling Swapo Party member of parliament Eliphas Dingara was in the news again in April 2024 over a proposal he has put forward to give every Namibian over a certain age N$1 million as a way to combat poverty and inequality in the country.
Dingara is reported to have first raised the proposal in the National Assembly in November 2021, and then followed it up by submitting a motion in parliament in June 2023, which was withdrawn almost immediately.
However, Dingara’s proposal resurfaced again in the news in mid-April 2024, with the reporting leaving more questions unanswered than answered.
What Eliphas Dingara is proposing
In short, the Swapo Party politician is proposing that every Namibian over 25 be given N$1 million, which will be derived from sales of Namibian diamonds.
In this regard, Dingara was recently quoted as saying:
“I have developed a formula and I have decided to select which resource of the country can make this possible, which is diamonds.
“There is a huge quantity, with over N$26 trillion worth of diamonds that have been discovered,” he said.
Dingara said if only N$3 trillion worth of diamonds are mined, each qualifying Namibian would be taken care of.
“As soon as a person turns 25, they would qualify. This is real, I have done research and I will table it. Every member of parliament now is waiting for that motion. And it will work. Every Namibian will get that N$1 million,”
Coverage of Dingara’s proposal has not addressed what his “formula” is, even though he has been asked to clearly explain it, and where he got the data that shows the “over N$26 trillion worth of diamonds that have been discovered” in Namibia. It is also not clear whether the N$1 million would be once-off or would become a repeat payment.
It is these unanswered questions, among others, that have led to Dingara’s proposal being labelled “impractical” and even “delusional” by experts and political commentators, with even his own party, the Swapo Party, appearing to distance itself from the proposal.
An economist’s perspective
Namibia Fact Check put Eliphas Dingara’s proposal, as it is, to a leading expert on the Namibian economy.
Robin Sherbourne is an economist and author of the seminal ‘Guide to the Namibian Economy’, as well as having extensively researched and written about diamond mining in Namibia over the last few decades.
On the claim of there being “over N$26 trillion worth of diamonds that have been discovered”, Sherbourne notes that he is “not sure where he (Dingara) gets this number”. Similarly, on the claim that it would take “only N$3 trillion worth of diamonds” to fund the proposal, Sherbourne also simply states that he is “not sure where he (Dingara) gets this number”.
Sherbourne compiled the following information to illustrate that Dingara’s proposal is unrealistic:
What is important to draw from this table is that while it would require N$1.4 trillion – about 14 times the current budget of the Namibian government – to pay eligible Namibians a once-off N$1 million, in the current financial year the government’s total direct revenues from diamonds comes to only N$4 billion, which is considerably less than one percent of the required N$1.4 trillion.
Sherbourne concludes:
“If this year’s diamond revenues were given to everyone over 25 years of age, each person would receive about N$3,000, assuming the cost of distribution were zero. Even if there were N$3 trillion worth of diamonds that could be mined, it is not clear what the cost of mining them would be and therefore what would remain to be distributed once these costs had been paid. Revenue should not be confused with profit!”