Amushelelo warns companies to adhere to minimum wage order

Social activist Michael Amushelelo warns companies to ensure that the security companies they employ adhere to the national minimum wage order or suffer retaliation.

“What we are simply advising companies, especially companies who have security guards that they have employed, they must make sure that the company they have contracted are complying with the law,” he says.

This comes after security guards of PIS Security Services staged a lockdown at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust) on Friday morning, preventing students from attending their graduation ceremony and examinations.

Amushelelo on Friday told Desert FM about the PIS security guards experiencing a delay in their salaries, which is expected to be paid on the seventh of every month, and that they have not been paid their minimum wage of N$13.5 per hour.

“Workers from 1 January have not been receiving their N$13.5 per hour as they ought to have. So they must now be paid what is called back pay for all those months that they have not been receiving their full salaries,” he said.

Starting from next month, Amushelelo said companies are expected to pay the N$13.5 minimum wage to every security guard.

He said if companies do not comply, they will face the consequence of security guards staging a lockout or walkout.

Amushelelo said the matter has been addressed with Nust and PIS Security Services in a meeting where Nust requested PIS to issue them with an invoice for the new rates and the months that the workers were not receiving their full salaries.

Nust and PIS have been given until 23 May to ensure the back pay of all security guards have been paid in full.

“This was a situation that could have been avoided because this morning we saw students who needed to go for graduations, there were students who needed to go write their exams,” he said on air.

The Namibia Security Labour Forum and the Security Association of Namibia (SAN) confirmed a wage increase of N$13.50 per hour for security guards, as gazetted by the government in January.

The wages order agreement between SAN and the government was signed in December.

SAN president Dhiginina Uutaapama says the phasing implementation programme was phased in with N$13.50 per hour in 2025, and will continue with N$16 per hour in 2026, and N$18 per hour in 2028.

Uutaapama says the phasing approach reflects the government’s commitment to balancing the interests of workers who deserve fair compensation.

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