It’s Time To Review Namibia’s Employment Equity Law

In 1998, Namibia enacted a law providing measures to bring about equity in employment.

While the objectives of the law and the ensuing affirmative action programme are noble, a few implementation issues are of immediate concern.

Twenty-seven years since its inception, the programme appears to be blindly soldiering on in its original format.

Key information on progress is either scant or non-existent.

Clear time limits for achieving the programme’s objectives were not established. The crafters further opted not to have a sunset clause, making the programme a permanent governing feature. 

The world moves on while the affirmative action programme remains frozen in time. This has to change.

It’s time to review the scheme to make it relevant to changing circumstances, and to take concrete steps to fulfil its mission.

Namibians deserve to know what aspects of the programme have worked, what has not worked, and the associated costs.

Most importantly, citizens need to be apprised of the impact on workplace equity, the effect on job creation and on the competitiveness of affected businesses? 

MANAGEMENT THROUGH IGNORANCE

A few weeks ago, we requested the latest progress report on the affirmative action programme from the Employment Equity Commission (EEC) office. 

The ‘freshest’ report they had covered the period ending 2017/18.

This means that since 2018 the commission has failed to produce a report, or does not want to share up-to-date information on the current state of employment equity in the country.

Equity in employment is why the commission collects data from the public and private sectors annually.

Reports and actions emanating from this is the commission’s raison d’être. 

At the very least, a functioning commission should produce a report annually, in which it appraises itself and informs the nation on its performance vis-à-vis its goal and targets to redress skewed employment practices.

None of this information has been shared with the nation for the past six years. Without data, the commission’s efforts are akin to a hunter shooting in the air in the hope that a flock of birds crosses the sky at the right moment. 

One also wonders on what basis parliament appropriates funds (N$6.7 million in the 2025/6 financial year) to the commission.

This is surely not the way to spend public resources.

Of more serious concern is the resources expended by both public and private sector employers in compiling reports that the commission does not appear to take seriously. 

Decisions on the allocation of funds and on the continued implementation of the affirmative action programme in its current format are made without sufficient knowledge or concern for the facts or the consequences involved. 

WHERE ARE WE?

The 2017/2018 Employment Equity Commission annual report reveals that 924 relevant employers (those with 25 or more employees) reported 277 745 employees across all sectors during the 2017/18 review period.

It is important to note that the threshold was later reduced to 25 employees in 2006 and further lowered to 10 employees in 2022, broadening the act’s scope to include smaller businesses.

The report reveals under-representation of the previously racially disadvantaged at management levels (63% of the positions), while white employees, who then comprised 4% of the workforce, accounted for 29% at the same levels.

The lower number of whites (7%) in the top structures of the public service compared to their near absence in all public service ranks (0.4%) is notable. 

Of the 277 745 employees in 2018, 41% were employed by the central government (excluding local government and public enterprises).

The percentage of employees in the public service covered by the report will most probably be much higher when figures from local government and public enterprises are added.  

From the above, one discerns a massive public service in which job opportunities are dominated by black people.

The massive expansion of the public sector in the central, regional and local structures, coupled with the political will to transform the civil service, is at the bottom of many job opportunities that boosted black representation in the high ranks of the public service. 

The private sector ranks have not grown at a similar pace. 

In his foreward to the 2018 report, the Employment Equity commissioner denounced the “white management who take employment decisions that are influenced by racial prejudice and by so doing, (they) deliberately maintain the management profile that is skewed towards the white race”.

Shifting the blame is the first line of defence. 

ROUTES TO EQUITY

While most Namibians agree on the need for equity in employment, differences arise in the route chosen to achieve this.

The crucial question is: Should equal representation be pursued through business growth or through sharing/slashing/dividing existing jobs?

It is considered reasonable when an employer grants the available job in the family business to his kin – should such kin be skilled to perform the job.

Don’t most of us satisfy ourselves and our immediate circles before being benevolent?

However, when the business grows to a point where it requires high-level know-how in increasing numbers, the owner soon runs out of kith and kin to place in job opportunities.

Family and social connections become insignificant.

Unlike in the public sector, where bureaucrats have no regard for the bottom line, merit enters the equation.

Henceforth, merit becomes the primary principle in the recruitment process. The applicant’s race becomes ‘nullius momenti’. 

The point is: It is time that we recognise economic growth as a fitting route through which equal representation can be achieved.

Trying to push for employing members from designated groups amid slow economic growth will take us nowhere.

Opportunities in the private sector are created through new business or expansion of existing enterprises and not through ‘bullsh*t jobs’.

BLOAT, GROWTH AND STRATEGIES

Bureaucratic bloat has contributed significantly to employment equity in the public sector.
(Un)fortunately, bloating is untenable in the private sector.

The best the government can do to boost private sector employment is to scrap bureaucratic regulations that impede the establishment and growth of businesses. 

Given Namibia’s astronomical unemployment rate, attention should be focused on growth-producing strategies.

It is the provision of water, electricity, and targeted support to small and medium enterprises to grow and improve their businesses that will ultimately impact economic inequality.

The transfer of jobs from whites to blacks without creating new jobs or national wealth does not increase employment.

We are doomed if we clutter our vision of employment creation with an unfocused transformation agenda.

Is this perhaps not the right time to carry out an evidence-based review of the law? 

THE ACTUAL BENEFICIARIES

Finally, we need to ask: Who actually benefits from affirmative action measures? It is not the unemployed men at Windhoek street intersections begging for whatever job is available on the day.

The men at traffic intersections don’t want to take up a white man’s job. They just want a job.

The beneficiaries of the affirmative action programme are the well-connected men and women who have snatched up cushy jobs in the public sector (government and public enterprises).

And worse, they continue to use their connections and leverage the affirmative action law to ‘transform’ the few high-level positions in the private sector. 

– Hannu Shipena and Chris Shatona from the Improvement Network Trust. The Improvement Network Trust strives to build partnerships to promote and drive positive change and improvements in education and leadership across sectors in Namibia.

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