Civil servants call off GIPF demo

CIVIL servants who had been at the forefront of a planned march to protest against the millions that were squandered through loans given from their pension fund have called off the march pending a forensic audit being carried out by the Auditor General’s Office.

The committee that has been organising the protest says it will wait until the end of February for the audit to be completed. The committee’s deputy chairperson, Djaupyu Siteketa, on Monday said that the demonstration was a last resort and for now the committee opted for negotiating with the relevant stakeholders, while also running an SMS poll to ask civil servants what they think should be the next course of action. According to Siteketa the main focus is to force Government to recover the N$660 million that went missing after it was lent to 16 politically connected start-up business projects through the GIPF’s now defunct Development Capital Portfolio (DCP). Last year’s congress of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) called on Government to act on the DCP failure. It recommended that the entire management and board of trustees of the GIPF be suspended to clear the way for a presidential commission of inquiry. The congress also resolved that the workers’ lost pension money must be recovered ‘from those concerned and that they must be held accountable in their individual and collective capacities’. Auditor General Junias Kandjeke suggested that two board members, the CEO, the investment general manager and investment manager of GIPF take voluntary leave while the audit is being done. The request, made by Prime Minister Nahas Angula, was reportedly rejected by the GIPF management .Angula reportedly said that he could do nothing to force the officials to go on leave to pave the way for smooth investigations. The planned demonstration was called off at the eleventh hour in November last year to allow the regional and local authority elections to pass. Since the civil servants, with the help of NUNW secretary general Evilastus Kaaronda, started organising the demonstration last year, the NUNW-affiliated unions have been rocked by division and differences of opinion over the timing and the need for such action.Kaaronda particularly was put under pressure by his union colleagues, with the move being discouraged and even condemned from the highest echelons in Government.The workers, while agreeing to Government’s decision to conduct a forensic audit of the failed DCP loan scheme, wanted more to be done immediately, including suspending GIPF’s board of trustees and its top management.However, Government at the time argued that the outcome of the forensic audit would determine a further course of action and did not deem the suspension of the trustees and top management as urgent.The NUNW central executive committee called an urgent meeting to discuss the planned march and disassociated themselves from the move, forcing Kaaronda to withdraw from assisting the workers, who were left on their own by their representative unions.The workers felt the unions betrayed them when they succumbed to political pressure and distanced themselves from the planned march. The organising committee called on civil servants to call extraordinary congresses to vote out those union leaders who went against their wishes. The Namibia Public Workers’ Union (Napwu) and the Namibia National Teachers’ Union (Nantu) are the official bargaining agents for public servants and teachers, who form the bulk of GIPF members.