By Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – The Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) has called on government to absorb the personal and administrative assistants of outgoing political office-bearers to prevent an increase in unemployment.
Personal assistants of outgoing ministers and deputy ministers will have to start looking for other employment if none of the incoming political office-bearers decide to make use of their services. The SPYL has urged that they rather be redeployed in the various government ministries should they become redundant.
Six cabinet ministers and nine deputy ministers lost their government jobs following the contentious Swapo electoral college and eventual national general elections held last year.
The fate of the current assistants of ministers Richard Kamwi, David Namwandi, Isak Katali, Joël Kaapanda, Uahekua Herunga and Rosalia Nghidinwa is currently unknown beyond March 21 when the new Cabinet is sworn in.
Defence minister Nahas Angula and deputy prime minister Marco Hausiku are voluntarily leaving government too.
The deputy ministers whose assistants’ future remain in doubt are Peter Ilonga, Elia Kaiyamo, Hilma Nicanor, Kilus Nguvauva, Lempy Lucas, Theo Diergaardt, Petrina Haingura, Angelika Muharukua and the late Willem Isaacks, who died in a car accident late last year.
There is now fear among the assistants of the outgoing ministers and deputy ministers that they could lose their jobs if the incoming political office-bearers decide to keep their own current assistants.
SPYL secretary Dr Elijah Ngurare, himself a former personal assistant to the late minister of regional and local government John Pandeni, appealed to incoming ministers and deputies to consider the current crop of secretaries.
“I wish to appeal to our government, as I have done in the past, to note that with every change of political administration, some young and hard-working contract employees who had either been personal assistants or administrative secretaries to outgoing political office-bearers often find themselves unemployed,” he said.
“It is in this vein that we appeal that these young contract employees be absorbed in their respective ministries that they have worked for and where they gained valuable experience over the years,” said Ngurare in a statement released last week.
The employment contracts of the personal assistants are strictly confined to the period for which the political office-bearer holds office.
According to Ngurare: “The camp of unemployed young people is full already. It will be inhuman and unforgivable to contribute to it in any manner.”
He added: “These army of young people are in the morning of their lives, let their hopes not be dashed by political considerations or retributions but rather be uplifted through human and patriotic considerations,” Ngurare said.
Ngurare commended the Namibian Defence Force and the police for their steadfastness in absorbing many unemployed youths into their ranks for much-needed jobs.