Edgar Brandt
Windhoek-After nearly 15 years at the helm of the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), Tarah Shaanika has confirmed his departure from the organisation representing private business interests in the country.
President of the NCCI, Sven Thieme, this morning confirmed Shaanika’s departure and announced that NCCI’s Manager for Member Services, Charity Mwiya, will be Acting CEO pending the appointment of a substantive CEO.
Although Shaanika declined to divulge his next career move, though he hinted at being active in the private sector, simply saying: “As of right now, I am unemployed”. At his last media briefing at the NCCI this morning, Shaanika called on government and the private sector to work closely together to achieve national developmental objectives.
These objectives, such as the country’s industrialisation drive and its Growth at Home strategy, said Shaanika, are hampered by lack of support from certain sectors. In addition, he urged government to ensure the country becomes more competitive to attract investment, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
Shaanika emphasised that factors hampering Namibia’s competitiveness include the cost of and access to land, the escalating cost of utilities as well as the availability of skills.
“Competitiveness will drive investor interest. Although we are lagging behind in terms of Vision 2030, we can still catch up but to do this we have to become more competitive,” said Shaanika.
The NCCI was established 27 years ago and has so far been led by 10 presidents and four CEOs. Shaanika was the fourth CEO in the organisation’s history and has held that position for a little more than half of the NCCI’s existence, making him the longest serving NCCI CEO to date.Thieme yesterday revealed that Shaanika decided on his own over a year ago to cut short his employment contract as the CEO of the NCCI and an agreement was reached with the Board of Directors that September 2017 would be his last working month.
“While the Board of Directors reluctantly granted him his wish to leave the NCCI Secretariat to pursue other interests, we are happy that he has undertaken to continue making his contributions to the work of the Chamber and support the Secretariat and the Board in many other ways…Although the departure of the current CEO has been known to us for some time, the Board has not been able to appoint a replacement before the end of September 2017 when the position became vacant. This was due to several considerations, which the Board is still seized with,” stated Thieme.