DEAR fellow countrymen and women, I will completely fail in my duty if I do not extend a word of appreciation and gratitude to all NAFINU members and members to be, for their highly esteemed support and co-operation rendered to my office, during the year 2006. Despite minor challenges here and there during negotiations pertaining to workers’ related issues at various financial institutions within the ambit of NAFINU representation, at last we finally and collectively emerged victorious. I find it indispensable at this point to remind the nation that: “Workers’ rights at various financial workplaces and workers’ representation during negotiations, hearings and workers’ rights in general have become imperative of our time.” It remains an unavoidable fact that today we are overwhelmed by a prevailing spirit of belonging, a sense of being recognized as an important equal player in the economic development and equal sharing of dividends our country is generating, through the workers, employed at the various Financial Institutions, and their hard work and loyalty towards our motherland, Namibia. So being, NAFINU loyal members today, perhaps it means that you have opened the corridors of success for others to follow suit, becoming NAFINU loyal members as well as NAFINU future leaders, and make constructive contributions towards the workers’ complete economic emancipation before 2030, so to speak. It is my belief, as NAFINU General Secretary that: Soldiers can get a degree from a military academy, but their real experience or graduation, like any other profession, comes in the exercise of their duties, through their reaction to the opponent’s firing, suffering, defeat, continuous attack and adverse situations. This simply means that as elected leaders, we can’t afford to sit on our laurels and neglect our duties to serve the workers’ interest to the best of our abilities. Obviously, one needs no scholarly exposition to know that. The year 2007 will be full of teething challenges in terms of spreading NAFINU wings in showing our commitments by attending seriously to workers’ related issues. Our primary objective and mandate is to serve our members and recruit more and more for the best interest of NAFINU as a legal entity. We should act constitutional, think constitutional and adhere to the Labour Act of 1992. Blame-shifting exercises will take us nowhere, workers need deliverables. It is against this background that I seriously urge the other smaller unions like “BAWON and NBU” to come to the fore and enter into serious discussion on how best and collectively we possibly could join forces, one way or the other, to create together a bigger workers’ platform, for us to become a strong force to be reckoned with, rather than the current scenario of scattered so-called internal unions, which happened to be turned into a one-man show – so-called inside unions or associates. Finally fellow Namibians, NAFINU does not have grudges against anybody, and we consider ourselves as no enemy to anybody. Of course, we may have some different approaches to different situations as they are unfolding, but that does not make you an enemy to anybody. It is in fact a test to our political maturity and reasoning, a test to our role as credible leaders how to solve and advise on issues: pertaining to workers’ related workplace disputes, etc. I therefore recommend a reconciliatory approach rather than a confrontational approach to prove our abilities and points, to lead, get involved and to advise. I believe in quality, transparent leadership rather than leadership based on quantity representations, prolonging solutions and actions to seriously attend to worth-mentioning workers’ issues, which at the end might leave our own members “not the wiser” on the primary aims and objective of our industrial union, NAFINU. Let us collectively, during the year 2007, talk about our members’ improved working conditions, job security, training all involved in decision-making processed to make the expected impact from our loyal members and members to be, through constant negotiations, dialogue and all transparently involved. It is however regrettable, that nowadays, restructuring in companies and parastatals has become almost a daily occurrence, be it for economic or technological reasons, one tends to disagree with theses practices, as it might in the long run compromise productivity and the most needed expertise gained over a period of” reasonable time” and in my view is not “value adding”. I call upon all stakeholders to convene a national conference to discuss the impact of re-structuring accompanied by retrenchments, which in itself is a ticking time bomb especially in the light of the already high unemployment rate the country is currently faced with. Asnath Zamuee General Secretary