Job Amupanda has withdrawn from a 19-member Technical Committee appointed by Finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi to spearhead consultations on the protracted Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA).
Amupanda cited ideological differences over the planned implementation of the regulation as the reason for his resignation.
“I have been critical and resolute, and so I remain, against the neoliberal epistemology that characterize the Namibian economic system in general and the financial system in particular. This outward developmental outlook that dwarfs the poor and privileges the economic elite remains central to the problems our country and people face. This is the same ideological outlook that informed attempts by those behind FIMA to steal from the poor, in the form of taking their pension, in order to account for the rising public debt that jumped from 30% to GDP to 60% to GDP on account of economic misdirection by the same neoliberal mob,” he said in his letter addressed to the Finance minister.
The committee which was appointed last month is expected to deal with contentious regulation RF.R.5.10 Preservation of Retirement Benefit, whose implementation was halted indefinitely after various stakeholders opposed it.
The proposed FIMA legislation is expected to replace the existing legislation for non-banking institutions regulated by the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (NAMFISA) and govern retirement and medical aid funds and their administrators, short- and long-term insurers, collective investment schemes, and asset managers.
According to NAMFISA, the object of FIMA is to consolidate and harmonise the laws regulating financial institutions, financial intermediaries and financial markets in Namibia, and to provide for incidental matters.
