WINDHOEK – The Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Samuel ‘Chief’ Ankama, yesterday tore into TransNamib calling it an “irritating, very annoying” government entity that constantly asks for money as though it is the only state-owned enterprise (SOE) created through parliament.
Ankama, who was making his contribution to the first reading budget debate in the National Assembly, also turned on MTC and Telecom for alleged poor service and lambasted the “lazy, non-committed civil servants” who continue to draw salaries while not being productive. “Some public servants are shamefully a nuisance as they are just not doing their work at all as expected, however, they are paid a salary every month. This creates a mismatch between the workforce and productivity,” said Ankama.
Ironically he did come near to showering Air Namibia with praise saying the airline “appears to be improving”. But he added: “We still need to watch if they will come again for another bailout. Funny enough, they would come with a turnaround plan to beg for money, six months later they would return asking for another bailout after diverting from the presented turnaround plan without informing government.”
Ankama did not mince words in blasting non-performing SOEs and suggested that “any SOE management that deviates from the business plan presented to government, and that runs out of money or underspends, be dealt with severely first to account for the mess before being shown an exit door.”
“And I strongly feel that outstanding performing SOEs should be recognised in kind,” he said.
But TransNamib was specifically singled out as “another irritating GRN business entity when it comes to bailout as if they are the only ones by creation of this august House”.
“Today they want money, tomorrow they want more money … very annoying,” said Ankama.
As for MTC and Telecom, Ankama says they are trying hard to bring competition in service delivery to clients, “but a mixture of lip-service is quite evidently characterised by lack of professionalism, lies and shortage of technical skills.”
“For instance if one applies for service, what you are promised is not what you get. When service is provided, it usually takes months to deliver to the client. Further, if they so deliver, the service is either deficient and, or flawed by many, many technical problems. The worst is that technical teams will not even turn up for a long time no matter how many times they are called in,” said Ankama. He went on to single out MTC asking it to take cognisance of the need to critically review its administration, technical training and recruitment to address network coverage.
“In the Oshakati radius of about six to 10km, just like in the surroundings of Katima Mulilo and many other places, cellphone communication is terribly a great nuisance,” he said.
“They should seriously review footage between their towers and calibrate accordingly. Even though they provide bursaries to students, they must as well put their house in order to provide value for money service,” he said.