The Office of the Labour Commissioner recently conducted a stakeholders’ engagement on Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) as a comprehensive initiative to improve its service delivery. 

This initiative aims to address longstanding challenges, and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of labour dispute resolution in Namibia, while also providing stakeholders with a platform to identify bottlenecks that hinder speedy service delivery at the labour commissioner’s office, as well as to find common solutions to address these issues.

“The Office of the Labour Commissioner handles labour dispute resolutions through conciliation and arbitration processes, which have long attracted negative public criticism. As part of the engagement on BPR, these two processes have been assessed in their current state by detailing all steps taken, highlighting interactions, decision points and sources of information,” reads a statement from labour commissioner Kyllikki Sihlahla. 

Addressing stakeholders during the engagement, labour, industrial relations and employment-creation deputy minister Hafeni Ndemula noted that despite yielding positive outcomes, some flaws need to be addressed. 

“It would be unwise to ignore the fact that, like any other newly-introduced system and process, there are, also many areas of deficiencies and failures. It is acknowledged that some of these inadequacies are more serious, and have more far-reaching ramifications than others,” he stated.

Echoing similar sentiments, the executive director in the labour ministry Lydia Indombo said there has been a public outcry regarding delays in adjudicating labour cases at the Office of the Labour Commissioner. 

Consequently, the ministry has introspected, and decided to pilot the BPR at the Office.

“The public complaints are especially high regarding the conciliation and arbitration process. I believe the registration of federations, associations and trade unions is much faster. Labour cases are taking more time than expected. Some parties to disputes have given up, and some have lost trust in the Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms available to them in the country,” she admitted.

The public service has many reform initiatives to improve public service delivery, including BPR, the Performance Management System (implemented to promote self-rating and accountability among officials), the Public Service Wage Bill Containment Strategy and Public Sector Innovation. 

“The benefits of these reforms are numerous, if those entrusted with such responsibilities apply them to the best of their abilities,” she stated.