Cleaners at Tondoro Health Centre in the Kavango West region have been roped in to construct a building at the facility due to a lack of sufficient funds to hire a contractor.
The cleaners say they are doing the construction work while continuing with their normal cleaning duties, with no agreement on additional payment.
One of the cleaners, who spoke to The Namibian on condition of anonymity, says three cleaners have been involved in constructing an administrative building since early last month.
“We were just told to construct. There is no agreement for payment for us,” the cleaner says.
The worker says the cleaners did not enter into an agreement before taking on the additional duties. They were told that because they work at the health centre, they were expected to assist with the construction.
The cleaner says the instruction came from the matron in charge of the health centre.
“We were told that if we don’t construct we will be fired and that there are a lot of people who are out of jobs who can replace us. We are halfway through construction,” the cleaner says when asked about the progress of the project.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services has confirmed that staff members at the health centre were asked to assist with the construction due to a lack of funds to hire a contractor.
Health ministry spokesperson Walters Kamaya says the matron confirmed the arrangement to his office.
“According to the matron, the staff members were asked to assist with the construction, to which they agreed,” Kamaya says.
He says the health centre decided to use skills available among its staff to cut the cost of the project.
“They felt it would be cheaper to use available skills at the facility,” he tells The Namibian.
Kamaya says Tondoro Health Centre is a church health services facility and does not generate additional income or profit.
He says the facility relies on a government subsidy, which mainly covers staff salaries and operational costs. Kamaya, however, says he could not confirm claims that staff members were told they would be fired for refusing to do construction work.
Kavango West health director Franciska Hamutenya did not confirm how much money the health centre receives from the government.
Hamutenya says there are sometimes delays in releasing the funds.
Affirmative Repositioning Nkurenkuru district chairperson Modestus Kupembona last week called for the construction work to stop. Kupembona said cleaners should not be required to perform construction duties outside their job descriptions.
“They were made to build this building. They have to offload and collect sand for the building, and they did numerous construction works here. They must desist from this tendency of exploiting workers,” he said.
Kupembona said paying the cleaners overtime would not justify assigning them work outside their normal duties.
“If there is a financial constraint, if they don’t have a budget for it, why do you have to implement such projects?” he asked.
