PDM leader McHenry Venaani says the recent actions by the children of the liberation struggle have the potential to pose a security threat, urging the government to urgently address their plight.

The call comes after a group of Struggle Kids recently blocked entry to the Ministry of Defense and locked offices with chains.

Many of the Struggle Kids are now grown up, but as orphans, their parents died as a consequence of the pre-independence fights.

Over the years, they have staged many protests, calling on the government to give them jobs.

Some of the Struggle Kids have been absorbed into government ministries and agencies.

But there are also some who have refused the job offered by the government, lamenting that they should be offered high-paying office jobs.

Venaani says the situation faced by these kids, including by the members of the then-South West Africa Territorial Forces (SWATF), is genuine, and cannot be swept under the carpet.

"If you have a situation like this, where a group of people finds their issue so important that they go and risk the life of the security of the country by blocking the entrance of the nerve center, which is the defense, you are dealing with a problem, whether you want to realize it or not. It is a problem that must be addressed."

This, according to Venaani, should serve as a wake-up call for the government to take drastic action.

He says the PDM has been raising the issue of the Children of the Liberation Struggle.

Without excluding himself, the PDM leader stated that his colleagues had failed to work cohesively and put an end to what he called the "regularly piercing" issue.

Venaani proposed that the government release N$40 million from the Namibia Special Risks Insurance Association towards the plight of the Struggle Kids.

"Now that we have this reality and we have the fund that has grown up to N$1 billion, why don't we take N$40 million and put N$20 million as seed capital, and you give N$10 million to projects, give them training, give them SME support, blend them in, and let them continue working with society?"

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Photo Credits
Windhoek Observer

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Author
Emil Xamro Seibeb