By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – President of the Teachers’ Union of Namibia (TUN), Mahongora Kavihuha wants government food tenders to be awarded to companies at constituency level.
“Awarding tenders to companies at constituency level will increase the number of Namibian companies to 20 or 30 and locals will share the national cake,” he said. He said awarding food tenders at constituency level would promote local economic development and allow money to trickle down to the grassroots.
“Constituency-based companies are more likely to source their materials from locally and thus grow local industries and capacity, creating employment for locals,” he said. Kavihuha further said that his union has been following the developments surrounding the ‘controversial’ food tenders in the Ministry of Education and have realised that tenders are awarded to big companies, which are mostly foreign-owned.
“When it comes to BEE (black economic empowerment) it is the same clique that continues to benefit from these tenders, thus perpetuating the status of the rich getting richer and the grassroots being left out,” he added. He said the cancelled food tender saw the country being divided into seven regions for which 88 companies competed.
“Out of the 88 only seven could be selected,” he said.
He added that these companies are expected to have an overdraft facility of N$50 000 and a performance bonus of N$150 000.
“These criteria eliminate smaller local companies,” he added. Kavihuha was reacting to last year’s N$3 billion food tender N$47 million of which was awarded to a company linked to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Alfred Ilukena’s wife, Wendy Mwange.
At the time, media reports accused Ilukena of taking advantage of the absence of the education minister David Namwandi, who was in Berlin, Germany, at the time, by presiding over the ministry’s food tender allocations nearly worth N$3 billion, and pushed ministerial recommendations that favoured awarding tenders to various companies, including his spouse’s alleged company. Prime Minister Hage Geingob later directed the Minister of Education David Namwandi to re-advertise the tender.
In a statement released last year, the Prime Minister said “With regard to the reports on a potential conflict of interest with awarding of the Ministry of Education’s food tender, I would like to indicate that I have directed the Minister of Education to withdraw and re-advertise it for the process to start afresh.”