How the Banks Block Namibia’s Development

Many people in Namibia are like Ernest (or more correctly, Ernst Christian) from Mariental. Ernest is a final-year information technology student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. Ernest is bright, hard-working and wants to start a business in the logistics sector, but like most young Namibians he has no start-up capital and does not have the right connections to access it.

I’ve known Ernest for almost three years, and my first impressions were that Ernest is a most earnest young man who knows the value of money and goes to church regularly. He’s the sort of young man most mothers in Namibia would want for a son-in-law. But without money, his dreams are mere illusions.

So Ernest came to me with a plan to buy a car and work for ride-hailing company Yango until he can buy a second car. He, however, has no money to buy a car, so I proposed to help him: I would provide him with roughly half the money he needs, or N$40 000 for a good quality imported car. The other half would come from a bank loan that I offered to guarantee by providing the bank with a term deposit if Ernest failed to pay.