WINDHOEK – National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) secretary general Job Muniaro has called on Namibians who get awarded huge tenders worth millions of dollars and sell them to foreign-owned companies to desist from such acts.
Muniaro, during the employment creation seminar underway in Windhoek, raised concern that in the already struggling construction sector there are some Namibians who are busy selling tenders awarded to them to foreign companies.
He said these unscrupulous Namibians were doing so in an attempt to make a quick buck.
He said the same individuals later complain that foreigners were getting tenders ahead of the locals.
“When you are selling the tenders, you are selling the jobs for Namibians. You are selling the country, you are exporting the money yourself…now we are here sitting complaining that the money is not in the country, but we are selling the money ourselves,” Muniaro remarked.
Namibia currently has no law regulating the construction industry regarding selling tenders to foreigners.
Muniaro also rubbished allegations that local construction companies lack capacity hence many tenders are awarded to foreign firms.
“We have the capacity; go to Rehoboth. Where are our VTCs? – they are training people but who are now idle without jobs because we want to use cheap labour and use foreign companies. Now we are sitting with our own problems we have created,” he said.
CEO of the Roads Authority (RA) Conrad Lutombi early this year revealed that all active road projects by the RA had created 13 607 employment opportunities.
This, he said, was in line with the authority’s SME Development Policy which takes cognizance that creating employment is one of the major national development goals.
Also, Lutombi noted that in terms of participation of Namibian versus foreign contractors, over the past five years RA executed road works to the value of approximately N$16.5 billion.
Out of this amount, a total of N$9.25 billion value of works were executed by local contractors, translating to approximately 56.6 percent of the value benefiting local contractors while foreign contractors and Namibian-foreign joint ventures executed N$7.25 billion (43.94 percent).
Businessman Balastus Amupolo yesterday expressed concern that there is a need to unify the construction industry to avoid racism.
“Let’s call a spade a spade if we want to move our economy forward, especially in the construction industry, which is based on racism. You find that if the construction engineer is German-speaking, then the contractors are also German; if he is Afrikaans-speaking, the same applies, and then us the darkies come now. We must unify the industry so that there is no racism in the construction industry,” he retorted.