The president has fired ministers and condemned graft as treason – yet the system enabling it remains intact.

Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah set the bar high from the outset. In her 2025 inaugural address she said graft should be treated as treason, as it could breed frustration and provoke citizens to overthrow the state.

She has kept up the pace, at least rhetorically, and also apparently in some action. In April last year, just weeks in office, she fired agriculture minister Mac-Albert Hengari following serious corruption and rape allegations.

In October, she dismissed deputy prime minister and industries, mines and energy minister Natangwe Ithete, days after the president declared that her administration would ‘not tolerate complacency, negligence or self-interest in the conduct of public affairs.’

NNN, as she is popularly called, has not let up this year, certainly not at the level of rhetoric.

She warned in an address at the Supreme Court that public confidence in Namibia’s state institutions was weakened when cases involving the abuse of public resources remained unresolved for long. She reaffirmed her administration’s ‘unwavering commitment to supporting a strong, independent and effective judiciary.’

She told Parliament after her State of the Nation address last month that reportedly disappearing funds from the Government Institutions Pension Fund and losses reported at the Bank of Namibia were ‘smelling of corruption’ and must be investigated.

Local reports indicate the bank lost N$892-million for the year 2025.

The president reiterated her earlier point that corruption should be equated to treason as it undermined Namibia’s development and threatened peace and stability. She called for all Namibians to ‘join hands in the fight against this social ill.’

In August last year she warned public enterprise chief executives that any who committed corruption ‘will be held accountable and will face the wrath of the law.’

She said corruption in state-owned enterprises was ‘a cancer that must be eradicated, not through rhetoric, but with firm action.’

That warning has come to seem ironic to some Namibians though. Despite the dismissals and the declarations, corruption has continued. In February, Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) Member of Parliament Imms Nashinge called for an independent corruption probe into the Namibian Agronomic Board after whistleblower allegations of procurement bypasses and unfair salary hikes.

The president has not shied away from the failures. In Parliament last month she lamented that in its 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International gave Namibia a score of 46 out of 100 – ‘a decline of three points’ over the year before. The index ranked Namibia 65th out of 182 countries (where the least corrupt country Denmark was ranked first). (Namibia’s big neighbour South Africa did a lot worse, ranking 81.)

The question then is whether NNN is doing enough about corruption, beyond condemning it in ever stronger language. Some have questioned whether her firing of the two ministers last year should really be seen as combatting corruption.

Though agriculture minister Hengari was charged with corruption, this was in fact a charge of trying to bribe an underage girl not to reveal their affair, which constituted statutory rape.

And the reason for her firing Ithete is also unclear. Though there was speculation about graft, there were also suggestions that he had been dismissed for insubordination by awarding a mining contract in defiance of a moratorium decreed by Nandi-Ndaitwah.

The main opposition party, the IPC, has called on the president to allocate more funds to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). But she replied that ‘millions and millions’ in funding would not deliver clean government without a change in mindset.

The IPC has also noted that few culprits have been brought to justice for corruption such as the notorious Fishrot scandal involving huge kickbacks for fishing licences. Her attitude has been that Namibia should look forward and not back.

The IPC meanwhile has suggested that NNN cannot tackle corruption because her own family is implicated. IPC leader Panduleni Itula in February issued a statement noting that Nandi-Ndaitwah had stated ‘categorically and without reservation that my children have no interests, direct or indirect, in the oil and gas sector.’

Itula said this was untrue as her son Tate Nande Ndaitwah had a company that was importing and distributing fuel. He has denied this.

Namibia expert Henning Melber, a member of the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) and Extraordinary Professor of Political Science at Pretoria University, told ISS Today that, ‘Seeing is believing. And so far, little is visible.’

By classifying corruption as treason, Nandi-Ndaitwah set the bar high, ‘which needs determined action, which has so far been missing. A litmus test might be the appointment of a new prosecutor general taking office in 2027. The current one, second in office since 2002, has been accused of little appetite to prosecute major corruption cases (which she denies).’

Melber said the state-controlled and -appointed ACC had also widely been considered a toothless lion, understaffed and mainly focused on small fry instead of big fish. ‘Talking of fish: the Fishrot case [is] the biggest known case of corruption so far still pending.’

The allocation of fishing licences remained opaque, which fostered corruption, he said. The mineral sector also remained opaque. For instance, Namibia had still not joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and so the allocation of licences was murky and vulnerable to abuse.

Melber added that Nandi-Ndaitwah’s transference of all control and decision-making processes for oil and gas explorations from the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy into the President’s Office had prompted strong criticism and concerns. 

Could the problem lie in the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) itself? Political scientist Rui Tyitende has noted that Swapo’s Manifesto Implementation Plan (2025-2030) does not mention corruption.

It is also customary for tender recipients to contribute to Swapo’s funds – a practice that embeds corruption into the party’s financial model.

Could it be that for all the goodwill in the world, NNN is fighting an uphill battle against a political system that has grown structurally dependent on corruption?

Without tackling its institutional enablers – opaque licensing, a constrained ACC and a ruling party that profits from procurement – declarations of zero tolerance will remain precisely that.

Written by Peter Fabricius, Consultant, ISS Pretoria