Fight for poverty reduction grant to continue

Namibian advocacy groups have vowed to continue fighting for a monthly cash allowance for all citizens to help cope with poverty, despite being turned down by the government. "Prime Minister Nahas Angula left the door open for us for further negotiations," said Lutheran Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta on behalf of the coalition for the Basic Income Grant (BIG), on Thursday. "The BIG is a measure ... to channel resources directly to the people, to be freed out of the poverty trap." Churches and NGOs formed a coalition last year to lobby for a monthly cash grant of about US$16 to be paid from state coffers to every Namibian, regardless of income. The proposal was rejected by the government on Monday as unaffordable. According to the coalition's proposal document, the grant would be paid to about one million Namibians and would cost the state around $200 million a year, financed by a combination of higher value added tax and tax reforms. The government countered that it already spends $200 million a year on pension payments, allowances for foster parents, and other social grants. Kameeta said the coalition would prepare a response to the government's rejection of BIG and continue talking to the authorities. Namibia has one of the most unequal societies in the world. The Gini coefficient, which measures wealth distribution on a scale from 0 to 1 (the closer to 1, the more unequal a society, the closer to 0, the more equal it is), was 0.60, indicating that the gap between rich and poor is unacceptably high. According to the preliminary results of an income and expenditure survey by the government's National Planning Commission, about 30 percent of Namibian households live in poverty.