National power utility NamPower is just an exaggerated retail shop that exists to buy and sell electricity to Namibians, while having failed to make the country energy-resilient in three decades.

This is according to Landless People’s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi while unpacking the country’s energy crisis at a press conference yesterday. 

NamPower, he observed, currently exists to pay hefty salaries to its executives and board of directors, who are pompous enough to defy Cabinet directives and hold an entire country hostage with threats of switching off “the lights”.

Namibia finds itself in a precarious state as far as the provision of electricity is concerned.

NamPower, he said, is to take sole responsibility for this crisis. Namibia, he added, is better off without the power utility.

“There was an occasion where NamPower wanted straight 16% [electricity tariff of cost to customer]. Yet, that amount is way above inflation [6-8%], way above the salary increment of workers in the public or private sectors.

You can see that on aggregate, NamPower has been the average driver of increasing the living cost of society in the entire country. It has been the greatest burden that Namibians have had to carry. And for what? To put up a profit tag and sell, import and pay higher prices so that you don’t get the power grid closed from Eskom,” said Swartbooi. 

At the moment, Namibia is at the economic and political mercy of Zambia and South Africa, from where NamPower imports the bulk of the electricity it supplies locally.

Swartbooi took issue particularly with NamPower’s modus operandi, so much so that he questioned the very existence of the company.

In fact, it is Swartbooi’s fervent position that the work NamPower currently does can easily be done by a department in the energy ministry.

“It is a company that has lost its fundamental compact to make sure that electricity in this country is both available, affordable, consistent and pro-developmental. And they have decided to hijack society’s direction, and decided that they are the sole enterprise that can decide when we will have lights, and for how many hours

“It [NamPower] does not demonstrate a proper business strategy, having been a monopoly for so many years, to ensure that we are a shining example of how natural resources can be converted for a common social good,” a clearly irate Swartbooi charged.

It took two Cabinet directives for NamPower to heed the call not to halt its plan to suspend electricity to defaulting local authorities countrywide.

The NamPower board was hell-bent on its planned disconnection as part of its debt-collection plan.

According to people with intricate knowledge in the matter, it took a threat from Cabinet to fire the NamPower board and management to stop them in their tracks.

NamPower is owed over N$1 billion in unpaid bills.

“Let us dismantle NamPower. It failed to build power stations in the country for 33 years, and is basically a retailer - buying and selling electricity. A strong department of energy can also do that. Once we built sufficient hydroelectric power stations and sell enriched uranium for electricity-generation, we will not need a monopolistic. neo-colonial monster called NamPower,” Swartbooi stated.

He continued: “It is a company that is against the economic development of society because the more you have to pay for electricity, the more you lose potential investors who could have helped you generate wealth by creating employment.

Anomaly

Swartbooi and his orange army have been at the forefront in calling for an electricity debt write-off by NamPower, particularly by local authorities.

He said it is baffling that NamPower is using the commercial enterprise tag to shut electricity supply to local authorities, who themselves are not-for-profit entities.

“The other strategy they have is to intimidate and harass society into not agreeing to the electricity debt write-off. They are harassing the entire nation, and showing us utmost disrespect by saying that by a press of a button is ‘where we will put you in darkness’,” Swartbooi continued.  

He suggested that if the status quo continues, local authorities too must then be transformed into profit-making entities. For him, it is unfair for NamPower to derive a significant chunk of its profit from non-profit-making authorities.

“If municipalities increase their rates and taxes, people will march and accuse politicians of failing. But when NamPower or NamWater increase their rates, nobody demonstrates,” he theorised.

Fat cats

“They are just salary-hunters,” Swartbooi charged.

NamPower is one of the highest-paying parastatals in the land.

At the moment, inside information shows that the Daniel Motinga-led board collects at least N$14 000 in board retainer fees, and around N$6 000 in siting fees. The other board members are Martha Mbombo (deputy chairperson), lawyer Clive Kavendjii, Detlof von Oertzen, Evat Kandongo, Silke Hornung and Erenstine Tuneeko.

Those in the executive committee, spearheaded by managing director Simson Haulofu, pocket no less than N$2.5 million annually, excluding bonuses.

The others are Michael Gotore (chief financial officer), Gerson Rukata (generation), Braam Vermeulen (transmission), Kandali Iyambo (MSB), Selma Ambunda (human capital) and Fritz Jacobs, the chief operating officer.

NamPower has three pilots and a company secretary ,who all collect around N$2 million in salaries annually. 

Senior managers, including station managers, are paid N$2 million per annum.

It gets interesting as over 40 engineers, regional managers and divisional managers each receive between N$1.5 million and N$1.8 million a year.

At the bottom of the management chain are supervisors, who get between N$800 000 to N$1.4 million.

At the time of going to press yesterday, NamPower’s Tangeni Kambangula had not reacted to Swartbooi’s assertions.

-emumbuu@nepc.com.na