Africa-Press – Namibia. RESIDENTS of Tutungeni informal settlement at Rosh Pinah in the //Kharas region held a demonstration on Tuesday to express their dissatisfaction with an alleged unfair, discriminatory and corrupt recruitment process of a local construction company.
The company involved is the Namibia Construction Company at Trevali Rosh Pinah Zinc Mine.
Trevali Mining, a Canadian base metals mining company, owns 90% of Rosh Pinah Zinc Mine, and has announced the expansion of the mine in 2020 to up production from the current 700 000 tonnes to 1,3 million tonnes annually at a total capital expenditure of US$93 million.
The expansion requires several developments which Namibia Construction Company has been appointed to carry out.
Chairperson of the Tutungeni community Jimmy Booysen says the unemployment rate at Rosh Pinah is high.
“Poverty is visible in some households, and the community is suffering immensely, because almost every company that comes to Rosh Pinah is employing people on a discriminatory basis.
“Therefore we have had enough of these practices and have decided to stand up for ourselves,” he says.
Booysen says from the recruitment list they obtained from the company, about 49 people have been employed in positions such as site managers, civil engineers, earth-moving equipment operators, mechanics and carpenters, of which 32 are from Windhoek, and 17 are indicated as locals.
“One such person indicated as a local is a site clerk, but this person is from Windhoek, not from Rosh Pinah. There are also two Otjiherero young men on the list, but when we asked them, they said it’s not them.
“So, we are questioning the credibility of the list. Hope was created in us that locals would be employed, and now we are disappointed,” he says.
Namibia Construction Company Rosh Pinah site manager Corne Eigelaar says the company has received the curriculum vitae of aspiring employees from RoshKor, the local town-management company.
He says as part of the recruitment process, they focused on people with local postal boxes and residential addresses.
“It is always our intention to employ local people from a particular vicinity where we are doing work, as long as they have the skill set.
“We mostly end up with bricklayers and institutional workers and clerks from those applications. And we followed that, but to our surprise we are being questioned now,” Eigelaar says.
Namibia Construction Company has been contracted to do all the earthworks for the modification of the processing plant, the construction of a paste fill plant, the development of a dedicated portal and ramp to the future deposits location, and are employing individuals on an eight-month basis.
“Another thing also the 32 listed are our own employees such as civil engineers and operators who have been with the company for more than 10 years and know their trade. So its’ also not fair towards our employees that they become insecure of jobs when we work outside of Windhoek as they must now sit out to give employment to a local who has the skill,” said the site manager.
The company is expected to give feedback by the end of this month to the residents on the petition they handed over to Eigelaar.
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