NAC now wants ‘job grading’ exercise


By: CATHERINE SASMAN

AFTER an expensive and controversial restructuring process which resulted in many workers displaced and retrenched, the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) is yet again seeking consultancy services to do an extensive job grading exercise.

On Friday, the NAC placed an advertisement in newspapers in which it called for an expression of interest for a two-year  consulting service to conduct “intermittent job grading services” between April this year and March 2015.
The advertisement encourages black economic empowerment companies to apply for what can only be believed to be a lucrative consulting job after human resource consultant Brian Nalisa received a hefty payment of N$7,5 million after a less than five-month consultancy stint on the restructuring of the NAC last year.
The public relations officer of the NAC, Mia Davids, would not comment on the matter yesterday, and The Namibian was unable to establish contact with NAC board chairperson Ndeuhala Katonyala to expound on the new job grading exercise.
But a flabbergasted employee affected by last year’s restructuring at the company commented: “This company seems to have a lot of money to waste. It must be because it makes so much money on [aircraft] landing fees [at airports].” The employee further insisted that the “painful” restructuring process in fact did include job grading.
This was after the NAC had to pay out ‘separation packages’ to workers totalling N$30 million after the company ended the contracts of all workers with the exception of the CEO, subsequently re-employed and redeployed workers in promoted or demoted positions, and declared some positions redundant.
The NAC last year described the restructuring process a “success” and announced that 81 employees had received increases of between N$500 and N$70 000 per year. Workers, however, complained that the majority of salaries had decreased by 60 percent.
Workers also claimed that the restructuring had created 27 “ghost” positions. 

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