/ 15 November 2010

Namibia’s threatened public servants hold back

Faced with threats of summary dismissal and disciplinary action, and with the leaders of their union mainly interested in protecting their vested interests, Namibia’s public servants postponed their planned demonstration against the alleged looting of their pensions by Namibia’s political elite until after the regional and local elections at the end of this month.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Prime Minister Nahas Angula announced on Tuesday that they would refuse to accept any petition from the angry public servants.

Instead, Pohamba and Angula insisted that auditor general Junius Kandjeke conduct a new forensic audit of the public service pension fund, even though the statutory financial regulator, Namfisa, spent millions from 2005 to 2007 on such an audit by a private South African firm.

When public servants discovered that Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila had suppressed the findings of this report since 2007, the political fat hit the fire.

The public servants are demanding the summary dismissal of the management of the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) and its board of trustees for the organised looting of R660-million by cronies of Swapo. All told, the GIPF lost about R1,8-billion on ill-advised deals.

They also want the government to take steps to recover this money, lent out via the so-called Development Capital Portfolio (DCP) during 2000 and 2004 to a raft of black economic empowerment companies that largely consisted of Swapo high-ups.

In response to pressure from public servants, the Cabinet froze all new GIPF loans totalling another R1,8-billion, several of which were to be allocated to people suspected of involvement in the original scandal.

But Pohamba refused to dismiss GIPF’s managers or trustees, leading to accusations of a political cover-up. Many beneficiaries are closely linked to former president Sam Nujoma.

Efforts by the GIPF to clear the air and exonerate itself backfired badly when a 20-page ‘comprehensive report” on the DCP was exposed. To make the losses disappear, the report failed to list interest-free loans of nearly R30-million to a company run by a minister and several highly placed civil servants.

The scandal has also opened up a major rift between workers and their union representatives, many of whom benefited handsomely as representatives of the GIPF board of trustees.

Recently, the umbrella National Union of Namibian Workers and its affiliates, the Namibia Public Workers’ Union and Namibia National Teachers’ Union, called on public servants to abandon their demonstration.

At a meeting of angry public servants and teachers on Tuesday, the organisers of a pressure group calling itself ‘Civil Service” passed a vote of no confidence in their union representatives. No mandate had been given to NUNW or its affiliates to oppose the public servants’ demands, said organiser Adeline Black.

Cabinet secretary Frans Kapofi warned line ministries to take disciplinary action against those who defied government’s ban on demonstrations. Swapo also appears to have targeted NUNW secretary general Evilastus Kaaronda, who, late in the week, folded in the face of unrelenting pressure from his colleagues to back off from the confrontation.

With regional and local elections due on November 26-27 Swapo is clearly terrified of a voter backlash that could result in it losing control of the National Council and several key local constituencies.

The public servants are to reconvene on December 2 to plan a more effective, nationwide campaign, said public service spokesperson Cynthia Malgas.