New parliamentary building, waste of resources

Dear sir,
A new building for parliament is in the pipeline. I am not surprised to hear this as we are used to seeing scarce resources being wasted in Namibia. Yes sir, it would be a waste to spend good money on something that is rather useless and most unproductive – buying a new rubber-stamp would be much cheaper and would nicely do in this case!
For years, the Cabinet successfully oppressed our parliament – this is made possible by the overwhelming number of Cabinet members in parliament. In effect, parliament became a ‘branch’ of Cabinet. Yes, the executive branch of our government renders the legislative one superfluous under the prevailing circumstances.
This happens because the ruling party, Swapo, does not understand democracy. In Namibia, the legislative exists for reasons of displaying the ‘right image of democracy’ to the outside world only. Parliament is just about irrelevant and it would be more irrelevant  to spend more money on this institution!
Our nation is a sleepy one. Our people are largely indifferent to almost everything important regarding our government and the system in which government works. We have probably, in spite of the continuing outcries against corruption, unconsciously  accepted the overwhelming corruption ruling our society – including the corruption of the three core pillars of democracy – as unavoidable. Society has thrown in the towel, just as its majority did under the pressure of apartheid. Apartheid has now arrived in new form  – again welcomed by our ever-docile people. Not even our opposition opposed the new building. Not even those who know the state  ‘raped’ democracy opened their mouths to stop the idea from being discussed. Such a discussion would probably be a waste of precious time – time that could  be better spend on really important issues, issues like healing the sick democracy by restoring the independence of parliament!
Augusta -Julia Otto
Katutura