By:Justicia Shipena
In a joint statement this week, the Namibia Public Workers Union (Napwu) and the Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu) have lambasted the ministry of higher education for not attending a meeting which was called to discuss issues related to the governance and funding of the Namibia Institute of Mining and Technology (NIMT), as well as the recurrent delays in the payment of employees’ salaries.
On Monday, Napwu and Nantu met with the NIMT management, but ministry officials did not turn up for the meeting as they have given a prior notice of non-attendance due to other commitments.
The two unions said this demonstrated a lack of sensitivity to the plight of the employees.
They stated that the ministry not showing up shows why it has failed to have governance issues sorted out for over 30 years since the institute was donated togovernment by the Rossing Foundation in 1992.
Speaking to The Villageryesterday, deputy executive director of the ministry of higher education Raimo Naanda said there was an error in the meeting invitation sent to the ministry by the unions.
“We have confirmed with Nantu that we have received the meeting request, and we have indicated to Nantu our unavailability for a meeting on Monday. In fact, the request from Nantu had an error. The first error was that they have indicated in the letter that the meeting will take place on Monday the 17th, Monday was the 16th and not the 17th,” Naanda explained.
He said the ministry informed the unions that they were not available because they were engaged in other meetings and thus requested for the meeting to take place on Friday.
“To our disappointment, we learned that the meeting was held on Monday. And Nantu released a statement expressing their disappointment, and we are disappointed about that while we informed them that we would not be available to attend and that we should reschedule for Friday,”Naanda said.
He said the ministry is available today to engage the unions.
On Tuesday, through its lawyers Metcalfe Beukes Attorneys, Napwu and Nantu and their respective members employed by NIMT sent out a demand letter to the institution.
According to the letter, NIMT failed to pay approximately 172 employees’ December 2022 salaries and demanded the institution pay employees by 20 January 2023.
The letter said failure by NIMT to make payments today, will result in the affected employees being unable to report for duty as of 23 January 2023 because of financial constraints. The letter also reminded NIMT to ensure that all employees are paid their salaries for January 2023 on 25 January 2023.
“NIMT is paying salaries on the 25th of each month and not on the 20th,” Naandasaid.
Naanda further said government will try its best to resolve the issue of salary payment at the institution, ading that in December the ministry had released funds to the Namibia Training Authority (NTA) for it transfer the monies to NIMT.
“As a ministry, we don’t transfer money to NIMT. We transfer it to the NTA and the NTA has released the money for December’s salary to be paid that I can confidently tell you,” he said.
“Unfortunately this institution could not pay NIMT, and the reason why they could not, and I do not want us to go into that. When we picked up that NTA was unable to pay NIMT, as a ministry, we jumped in and we secured funds to support the institutions,” he said.
“We are trying to get the unions so that we can collectively look into this issue, whether they will come to Friday’s meeting or not.”
He said the ministry will try its best to safeguard NIMT to be able to fund its operation.
“As a ministry, we donot budget for NIMT, we budget for the NTA and operational expenses towards the NTA is about N$400 million which funds NTA operations and public VTCs.”