John Muyamba Rundu-Some members of the Namibian Food and Allied Workers Union (Nafau) in Rundu have threatened to withdraw their membership if their general secretary Jacob Penda does not take their concerns seriously, and they feel they are being neglected. Some members of the union who held a press conference in Rundu said the region has no proper structure since the union nullified their conference that was supposed to elect the regional leadership in August 2016, amongst other complaints. “We the branch executive committee, with the members of Nafau Rundu branch, are not happy with the attitude of comrade Penda and his team as a general secretary. Since he was elected as the general secretary he is treating us like we are not members of Nafau,” said Maria Kazere, Nafau’s regional treasure in Rundu who read the press statement on behalf of all concerned members. “Requesting budgets is a problem, requesting top leaders to come and assist the region when needed is also a problem. Penda gave the money for the regional office to a certain Shikongo while the branch account was active, and this has also contributed to us not having the regional structure up to date,” she said. They are also unhappy the SG’s office sent a notification that the regional treasurer should be transferred to Windhoek without consulting her. According to the press statement delivered on December 12, 2017 the Rundu office wrote a letter to the president of the union requesting the presence of the head office to come and receive the petition letter, but up to date there was no response. “We have learned that Penda and his team are not considering our concerns in our region and are taking their own decisions. Just recently they appointed a certain Simon from elsewhere to come and work in Rundu, without consulting us, we were not informed. Our demand is that Simon should work as a regional coordinator and Maria who is the branch treasurer should be the branch organiser – if not then we are going to withdraw our membership from Nafau, therefore we need answers as a matter of urgency,” their statement further spelled out. “The office of the general secretary must provide sufficient answers before 30 January, he must come himself or delegate someone,” the disgruntled members said in unison. New Era tried to get a comment from Nafau general secretary Penda, but who was unavailable.
2018-02-01 09:28:11 7 months ago
