OMUTHIYA – A total of 168 unemployed residents in the Omuthiya town boundaries have registered as job-seekers at the Omuthiya Town Council (OTC) office, in line with a requirement for local authorities to create a database.
OTC spokesperson Ottilie Shingenge said in an interview with Nampa on Tuesday that job-seekers come and register in the job-seekers’ registry at the office, where a temporary recruitment will be started when the need arises.
“These people will be employed to do cleaning, debushing and basically just beautifying the town,” she noted.
Shingenge said the request was also suggested by members of the public during a meeting held on 21 October 2023.
“Job-seekers will be employed on a first- come first-served basis when job opportunities occur,” she added.
Residents started registering on 7 November 2023, and are required to have a certified copy of a Namibian Identity Document (ID), certified copy of a voter’s card with the local authority, and must strictly be from Omuthiya.
The Tsumeb municipality has also come up with an initiative to mitigate youth unemployment in the area.
Municipality spokesperson Stella Nangolo said they have recorded over 4 000 job- seekers in Tsumeb over a period of two years.
“We have recorded more than 4 000 job- seekers in our town by 2021, which was also the last time we offered job-seeker registration,” she informed.
Nangolo said they employed the people to clean parks and cemeteries, and provided some to Dundee mining when they came looking for contract workers.
“When Dundee renovated its plant, we provided them with some temporary workers to help them out,” she continued.
Nangolo, however, raised concern that people flock from other towns in the hope of getting jobs at the Tsumeb Municipality.
“From 2022, we stopped registering people because people come from other towns with high expectations that we will employ them here. But what we did was add them to our database, and then share this database with new contractors in town,” she noted.
They now also use a new strategy when temporary work arises.
“We go to specific locations in Tsumeb to pick a number of unemployed people who are needed to go and work on a contract basis,” said Nangolo.
– Nampa