President Hu to President What?
President Mugabe visited Windhoek today. The freshly printed beautiful Zimbabwean flags replaced the rather dreary Chinese banners from the lamposts, but flew in stark contrast to the condition of the country it represents. Although one post displayed the apt symbolism of the Nam flag standing proudly square, contrasted with the Zim flag and presidential portrait sinking at a Titanic angle.
The visit was thankfully relatively low key. The only noteworthy feature and 'agreement' was the extremely puzzling offer from Namibia to pump between 20 and 40 million US dollars into a power station refurbishment in Hwange, Zimbabwe, thus almost entirely depleting the cash reserves of the state power utility Nampower. I thought this reserve was to develop new and alternative energy sources for Namibia, Epupa, the Kudu gas field etc. Can one suspect it is a political handout to President Mugabe, desperate for foreign exchange and sources of power. The alleged trade-off is that namibia will derive power from the new station? Seeing that Namibia has only a mathematical border with Zimbabwe - a point in the middle of the Zambesi - how will this power get to Namibia? Via Cape Town? How much of our 2 billion namdollars (sounds much worse like that) will we ever see again?
President Mugabe visited Windhoek today. The freshly printed beautiful Zimbabwean flags replaced the rather dreary Chinese banners from the lamposts, but flew in stark contrast to the condition of the country it represents. Although one post displayed the apt symbolism of the Nam flag standing proudly square, contrasted with the Zim flag and presidential portrait sinking at a Titanic angle.
The visit was thankfully relatively low key. The only noteworthy feature and 'agreement' was the extremely puzzling offer from Namibia to pump between 20 and 40 million US dollars into a power station refurbishment in Hwange, Zimbabwe, thus almost entirely depleting the cash reserves of the state power utility Nampower. I thought this reserve was to develop new and alternative energy sources for Namibia, Epupa, the Kudu gas field etc. Can one suspect it is a political handout to President Mugabe, desperate for foreign exchange and sources of power. The alleged trade-off is that namibia will derive power from the new station? Seeing that Namibia has only a mathematical border with Zimbabwe - a point in the middle of the Zambesi - how will this power get to Namibia? Via Cape Town? How much of our 2 billion namdollars (sounds much worse like that) will we ever see again?
For the meantime, what I was mainly worried about was the hot water supply situation in the capital, where a large number of the population might wish to take a bath immediately after PM’s departure.
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