Expatriates urged to register changed employment

By: CATHERINE SASMAN

THE immigration selection board will not approve permits for expatriates who abandon government-to-government contracts without providing “convincing” grounds, warned Minister of Home Affairs Rosalia Nghidinwa in Parliament on Wednesday.

Nghidinwa said expatriates take the Ministry to court to justify their changed conditions, and in some cases use motivation letters from previous employers “while in reality they have abandoned the contract with those specific employers”.
“They are doing this to convince the Immigration Selection Board to issue them with new permits without knowing the Ministry has mechanisms in place to detect the whereabouts of all illegal immigrants in the country,” she said.
Nghidinwa said expatriates who change their conditions of employment or those who move to other companies should do so on time before the expiry of their employment permits, or else be considered as illegal immigrants.
She said a reference letter from expatriates’ previous employers that their contracts have lapsed, will be a pre-requisite.
The Ministry stated that some expatriates work on a Government contract for a few years, then leave to establish their own businesses, costing Government in renewed recruitment drives.
It has made it mandatory to grant work permits to expatriates only in the fields in which Namibia has no, or a lack of, qualified personnel, such as veterinarians, medical doctors, pharmacists, geologists, pilots, marine engineers, professors or lecturers.
Apart from these fields, Namibian understudies should be identified to ensure a skills transfer.

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