By Joe-Chintha Garises
ROSH-PINAH, Aug. 18 — Residents of Rosh Pinah held a peaceful demonstration and presented a petition to the Namibia Construction site manager Corne Eigelaar on 16 August 2022.
The protestors, who were led by Jimmy Booysen, were aggrieved that the town’s inhabitants were not benefiting from the Namibia Construction Company’s employment policy as the company only hired or brought people from other towns at the expense of locals.
“The demonstration is to express the dissatisfaction of the local community with the unfair, discriminatory and corrupt recruitment process of your company, Namibia Construction.
“The company is also violating our right to be employed,” Booysen said when handing over the petition.
The town residents remained hopeful after information sessions conducted by Rosh Pinah mine early this assured them that they will get their first choice in employment.
However, nothing changed and only outsiders are allegedly employed at the construction site in the town.
“We had a meeting where we were told that the people only trust operators from their company while our people have documents that meet their requirement and experience.
“People with mining experience who used to work for the mine are not being trusted to operate the machinery of this company. I don’t know what special machinery they use that people who worked in the mine cannot be trusted with,” Booysen stated.
Booysen added that with the high unemployment rate, the community is mostly suffering from poverty but every company that comes to Rosh Pinah does discriminate against locals when recruiting even semi-skilled labour.
Local residents only get at most, short-term contracts of two-three months with some not renewed if they are not in favour of the employer.
“Last week you tried to trap us by sending us an email in which you requested us to give you a name from a list of 6 people whom we don’t know these persons or whose CVs we never saw.
“You were never transparent with your recruitments, now you want to involve us in your wrongdoings,” he added.
The community gave the company 15 days to come back with solutions and favourable responses by 31 August 2022.
