Amupanda flags ‘secret salaries’at SOEs

Affirmative Repositioning leader Job Amupanda has challenged state-owned enterprises (SOEs) over ‘salary secrecy’, warning it fuels inequality and undermines constitutional and affirmative action principles.

He said this during his notice of questions to minister of justice and labour relations Wise Immanuel yesterday.

Amupanda said whenever the government advertises a vacancy, the salary scale is revealed.

Transparency in government employment helps prospective employees make informed decisions, he said.

“This is, however, not the case with the state-owned enterprises and the private sector,” he said.

Amupanda said secrecy around salaries and the lack of transparency have led to the continuity of what the Constitution, which prohibits apartheid, sought to stop.

“Individuals doing the same job are paid differently on racial and kinship grounds. The founders of our Constitution, understanding our country’s history of inhumanity to men, deliberately put Article 23 in our Constitution and titled it ‘Apartheid and Affirmative Action’,” he said.

He said the parliament fulfilled the promises of Article 23 (2) by enacting, among others, the Affirmative Action (Employment) Act, leading to the establishment of the Employment Equity Commission.

Despite these provisions, he said employment barriers and racial discrimination still exist, and the practice and ideology of apartheid is still in place.

Amupanda asked why SOEs do not follow the example of the government by disclosing the salary scale for every vacancy.

He said the salaries of the president, chief justice and members of parliament are all known publicly.

Amupanda also asked the minister if it is possible for the provisions of the act, which advises the minister on regulations, to be made applicable to every employer in Namibia.

The lawmaker said the salary scales for all vacancies – at both SOEs and private sector workplaces – should be revealed by vacancy advertisements.

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