2015-10-20Staff Report 2 Windhoek Outgoing president of the Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia (MUN), Ismael Kasuto, has implored delegates at the MUN 11th national congress held at a lodge near Windhoek to guard against infighting. “The past years were bumpy for the MUN due to obvious challenges. As an institution we have been facing our battles from within that have been very disruptive and have changed our focus from serving the mandate that we needed to serve. This is purely as a result of our own behaviour and not external forces,” Kasuto told delegates at the two-day MUN congress that ended on Sunday. Delegates from all parts of Namibia met to elect the union’s new leadership and to deliberate on issues affecting mineworkers in Namibia. The new MUN national office-bearers are Raimo Hausiku, who was elected as president; Desley Thonseb, elected as vice-president; Eben Zarondo elected as secretary general; Paulus Situmba elected as MUN’s assistant general secretary; Jacky Kalumbu as national secretary and Paul Namwandi as the vice-national secretary. The new MUN treasurer is Freddy Kashimba and the vice-treasurer is Sarah Kandapo. Kasuto added that job security remains a threat to the social stability of Namibia. “We have endured massive retrenchments the past three years; over 1 200 comrades have lost their employment. We must take cognisance that such job losses result in social disruption where families are displaced,” the outgoing president said. The migration of members due to job losses has resulted in us to reconsider and readjust the way we operate as it threatens “our stability and that includes our spending habits without compromising our obligation to execute our constitutional mandate”, he said. “Today we can proudly say that we have managed to create a financial buffer to sustain ourselves as an institution and have managed to have a historical cash equivalent of over N$5 million, including the Namit Trust & Funeral Policy which is over N$1 million by end of September this year, compared to over N$2 million we had in 2013, and we reached a fantastic favourable steady growth of over 131.02 percent,” Kasuto said. Kasuto informed delegates that “our common responsibility remains to be united, focused and to place the interests and our constitutional objectives above all activities selflessly.” He added: “We can only build our union on the same principles our institution was built on, such as respect, self-education and capacity building, protecting our resources, serving our members by improving their working conditions and having unity of purpose.” 2015-10-20Staff Report 2
