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Windhoek ~U- Tel: +28481 288 2583 FaxSE: +284 888 557 471 Email: pdmnamibia@gmall.com SADe Protocol on Industty Response by Bon Rico Smit MP on Wednesday 23 March 2021 Hon Speaker, Hon Members, this protocol is the first step in the comprehensive overhaul of the development framework that guides industrialisation in all member states of the Southern African Development Community.
As such, it is a noble undertaking but its scope is vast and the implementation horizon will easily reach 50 years if not legal first longer.

convergence, will take up to twenty years and that actual implementation will only start after that.
including suspect phase, the I this is a draft document, When I first started working through the Protocol, I realised intended only to give the very that first baby-steps for moving on to the SADC INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY FRAMEWORK, formulated and SADC and released INDUSTRIALIZATIONSTRATEGYANDROADMAP,approved by the SADC Summit in April 2015. subsequent 2012, the In these two documents immediately place the Hon Speaker, to the extent that I wonder why current Protocol in context, we need a protocol at this stage, when there are already two substantive documents that address all the matters covered by the protocol.
2 But these two documents also made me realise that with the protocol we are looking at a VERY LONG implementation the Policy Framework makes horizon.

For provision for an implementation timeline from 2013 to 2018 while the second is more realistic, covering the period from 2015 to 2063, in other words a 48 year period.
instance, This is what made me realise that the implementation of the protocol, while it may take only a few years to get the two- thirds ratification, must make provision for the next 50 years, if not more.

Hon Speaker, as you all know, at this point there is no SADC strategy that has been adopted by all member industrial states, or even by a required two-thirds majority for ratification.
2018 has come and gone and not a single aspect of the Policy Framework has been implemented by any Member State, let alone by a majority.

The Policy Framework stands where it stood in 2012 - a well-researched document making provision for most contingencies, but in the end, just an academic piece of work.
It has no practical value unless it is endorsed by the Member States, ratified, and level subsequently introduced and implemented at national the legal through changes frameworks between the Member States.

in legislation to harmonize It is a similar situation with the Strategy and Roadmap.

It is now going on seven years since the intended target date for the beginning of its implementation and not a single step has been taken, until this year with the release of the Protocol.
So, Hon Speaker, when the two most important, tangible, practical documents for the region's industrial development have taken this long to lead to a Protocol, how long do you imagine it will take to finalise and ratify the Protocol, and to how long will before we actually take get it 3 implementation of the two official documents guiding our industrial development?
The Protocol does address some new issues, notably the importance of softer issues and the growing importance of so-called micro, small and medium enterprises.

However, Hon Speaker, Hon Members, with the latter, I have to warn you that there is no single definition that includes all these small businesses, and I will be very happy to see the Protocol eventually producing a unified, practical definition.

But I doubt that this will happen.


the Protocol only covers those issues and For the rest, processes that are more than adequately covered by the Policy Framework and by the Strategy and Roadmap.

Hon Speaker, finding that the Protocol is repetitive in most instances, I had to change my perspective and look at it differently.

Guided by Article 2 that lists the Objectives, I found that its intention is to promote industrialisation in an equitable and co-ordinated manner.

Well!

This was a revelation.


I would never have dreamed that is the reason for a Protocol especially since this is exactly what the second document, the Strategy and Roadmap is all about.

that There is not a single aspect of any of the Protocol's twelve stated objectives that are not already covered in the other documents.

But to be fair to the process, let me categorize them and leave it to you to decide if this is yet another exercise in producing volumes of hot air which leads to nothing.
The list of objectives can be summarised as • Capacity, • Investment, • Collaboration, 4 • MSME Promotion, • Standards & Regulation, • Trade in Raw Materials, • Innovation, • Environmental Impact, • Intellectual Property Rights, • Gender Mainstreaming, and • Data and Information Sharing.

the first and perhaps is disconcerting, What tentative indication that the Protocol will falter and be buried, is that In the there is very little mention of the private sector.
document itself, it is only covered in Article 17 and then only very briefly in four short clauses pertaining to capacity, dialogue, participation and financing.

and its role and engagement Now, Hon Speaker, Hon Members it must be noted that the private sector is the pillar of industrialisation in the two previous documents, are extensively covered and included in the Strategy and the SADC Member States Roadmap.
Does this mean that the new have had a change of heart since 2015 and that intention is to "go it alone" so to speak, and exclude the private sector from any meaningful participation other than asking them for money?

the I am afraid that if this is the case, the Protocol is doomed.

in SADC, South Africa There is not a single government to included, with the capacity or the financial wherewithal and drive undertakings.
When the private sector is excluded, side lined or ignored, the Protocol will at most turn into a relic and be ignored by the broader economy, both at national and regional level.

intentions Protocol through all its 5 Or, Hon Speaker, does it mean SADC as a whole has now embarked on a quasi-Chinese development model where all impetus is generated by the state?
This is also a doomed model because before we reach the 2063 deadline of the of Strategy and Roadmap, finance will have come to the fore, and a lack of it will make any industrialisation come to a grinding halt.

the overarching importance industrialisation is state-driven, it will not succeed.

If that in place backed by a Unless there is a SADC government majority of SADC citizens in an open and democratic process, regional integrated, co-ordinated industrialisation will not happen.
Even now, I can see how desperate national governments each vie for their own piece of the action, undermining all efforts to co-ordinate and promote industrialisation at level, and a host of fat cats fleecing their own regional to get as big as possible a chunk of the governments enormous to make it sums of money that will be spent appear there is a serious effort to establish regional value chains and centres of production.
This, Hon Speaker, brings me to a few very important theoretical aspects of industrialisation and development at regional level.

The first, but also the biggest obstacle, is harmonization of laws.

How do you think we, the Namibian Nation, will convince the Zimbabweans to open its border to free and equitable trade if they are not prepared to change their legislation to this effect?
How do you think we will convince the Congolese to build a tolerant society if they cannot even contain the militant elements in their own ranks?

6 And when we look further afield, do you think the Mauritians, who already have a flourishing economy based on industry, commerce and finance, will allow any other Member State to interfere in the way they have developed and nurtured their economic model?

It will not happen!

The second obstacle is harmonization of trade laws and regulations.
Do you think that our government will let go of the 16.5% import duty that it now levies on all the stuff that comes into Namibia?

They will not because they cannot afford to.

The third obstacle is the lack of supportive infrastructure outside South Africa.

If we do not realise that infrastructure development and industrial development go hand in hand, we will still sit with isolated industries operating in silos they have built only for their using the infrastructure own purposes.
that Infrastructure is covered in Article 14 of the Protocol in very broad and vague terms, taking note of the need for infrastructure but lacking a consideration for the enormous In short, there is not drain it will be on financial resources.

enough money in SADCto pay for the region's infrastructure but also for general needs, not only for industrialisation development.
This implies that the cost of infrastructure will be borne by foreign parties which will immediately create leverage which will be used to have a say in our industrial development.

I do not see from the Protocol that there is an awareness and a sensitivity to the enormous funding obstacle when it comes to infrastructure, and that the way SADCfinances its infrastructure may impede the direction and the scope of its long-term industrial development.
This raises again the question of what is the need for and the purpose of the Protocol?

7 Hon Speaker, Hon Members infrastructure is recognised in the Strategy and Roadmap as one of the pillars of industrialisation and its huge costs are not downplayed but instead elevated to one of the biggest mountains we will have is already to climb.

So if extensively covered in an existing document, why do we is at most a political need to restate it in a document undertaking and not a binding policy or treaty?
all-important aspect that this Another issue that does not feature so prominently but which we know from experience, is the lack of capacity, both institutional related.

The Protocol its implementation be driven by the SADC envisages that Secretariat.
and human resources I am telling you now, Hon Speaker, Hon Members, that the SADC Secretariat does not have the capacity to drive the Protocol across all 16 member states, not even across the continental states, so how can we expect them to be in charge of its implementation in all dimensions and across all jurisdictions?

adequate funding.
adequate funding.

What's more, building capacity takes a lot of time and it is requires already so severely constrained by a lack of funding, it will prove extremely difficult to find more funding sources to the human resources that will be required for the support Protocol.

If the SADC Secretariat Finally, and perhaps the clearest signal that the Protocol is dead in the water.

In Article 30 makes provision for Settlement of Disputes.
Clause 3 it states that any dispute that cannot be settled by the Committee of Ministers "shall be referred to the SADC the SADC Tribunal."

But in case you have forgotten, 8 Tribunal is defunct, eliminated right here in Windhoek by the SADC Summit.

Getting the tribunal up and functioning again will take several years since it will basically require a new legal mandate after its former mandate was obliterated.

I fail to see the need for this Ultimately, Hon Speaker, Protocol.
In its place, I feel we should dust off the policy documents that we already have, flesh these out, update them, and present them to the SADC Summit as workable policy documents.

In any logical chain of events, the Protocol would have preceded these detailed strategy documents, not come afterwards.

It smacks of a lack of purpose and commitment.


After we have designed the policies and the strategies, instead of focussing on ratification and implementation, SADC comes up with a broad, vague document that states only political intent at best.

Hon Speaker, I think we have moved beyond the point where we need this Protocol.
If we as citizens of the Southern about are African Development Community industrialisation, we must to the private sector role should be - that of and focus on what our proper creating the enabling environment through legislation, support.

All this work has policies and infrastructure it is now already been done in the existing SADCliterature; only a matter of giving them life.

leave that serious I thank you