Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
Acting CEO of the Roads Contractor Company Maria Nakale has come under fire from the Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters for allegedly being “greedy and self-centred” by working two jobs and collecting two salaries in a country where high unemployment is the norm.
According to media reports, Nakale was headhunted by the RCC board to lead the struggling parastatal on a short-term basis.
Nakale currently holds an executive position at the Retirement Funds Institute of Namibia (RFIN).
“It is despicable in this tough economic climate, typified by massive numbers of joblessness, that a single CEO in the person of Maria Nakale is being allowed to run affairs at the RCC while she equally holds an executive position at the Retirement Funds Institute of Namibia (RFIN),” charged NEFF national coordinator Kalimbo Iipumbu.
“Not only is this a demonstration of the most rapacious greed and selfishness on the part of the interim CEO, but it is a brazen display of a lack of patriotic interest to put 100% focus on turning the RCC’s waning fortunes around.”
Kalimbo said what is taking place at the RCC right now is a textbook illustration of how Swapo leaders are installing political appointees who lack the necessary work ethic and ethos to make success tales out of the depressing tale of the nation’s faltering parastatals.
“That Nakale has been allowed to come to work at times that she deems fit, and every month pocketing double salaries and no action being taken against her, is a pure demonstration of the lack of oversight from the board itself and the line minister, in this case Ipumbu Shiimi,” Kalimbo continued.
He said his party is aware that there is a general level of poor morale among the workers at the entity who, last month, expressed their anger by calling for the CEO and board to be kicked out.
“As a mass-based, left -leaning political party whose desire is to sustain a practical revolutionary programme that brings about the true economic emancipation of our people, the NEFF is thus calling for the CEO and the board to be dismantled,” he added.
“It is our submission that if the bad governance and poor oversight at the RCC is to be allowed to pervade the entity, the same situation that befell our dearly loved Air Namibia will befall workers at the RCC.”
Furthermore, Kalimbo said it is even more shocking that the board had to approve a cut in the benefits of the workers without adequately consulting the Public Service Union of Namibia (PSUN), and by and large the workers themselves.
“What is more appalling is the fact that the CEO, a mother for that matter, was able to find it morally correct to execute such an immoral decision which never affected her fat pay cheque,” he noted.
According to Kalimbo, this show of arrogance and callousness on the part of the executive must be condemned by every honest and peace-loving Namibian, especially presented with the sobering reality that this was done without even cutting the salary of the interim CEO herself.
“We are equally joining the clarion call of the PSUN and the oppressed workers at the RCC for this anti-working class and inhumane decision to be reversed with immediate effect if the CEO is not prepared to take a pay-cut,” Kalimbo stated.