Pohamba, Kaaronda meet on GIPF today

LEADERS of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) today have a face-to-face meeting with President Hifikepunye Pohamba to personally voice their unhappiness with the millions the Government Institutions’ Pension Fund (GIPF) squandered through its Development Capital Portfolio (DCP).

NUNW Secretary General Evilastus Kaaronda yesterday confirmed the twelve o’clock meeting between himself, the Head of State and NUNW President Elias Manga.Cabinet grilled the top brass of the GIPF for more than four hours at its sitting two weeks ago.The NUNW has already written a letter to Pohamba in which it asked him to resolve the GIPF issue before the November regional and local authority elections. If not, the workers will take to the streets, the federation has indicated.At its congress earlier this month, the NUNW said it was disappointed by the fact that ‘Government has to date not done anything to recover the workers’ monies despite having received the Namfisa reports some years ago’.The Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) in 2006 commissioned an independent investigation which found that the DCP was ‘fatally flawed’, that billions were lost due to bad investment decisions and that the GIPF did virtually nothing to recover workers’ pension money once these projects went bust. Both Prime Minister Nahas Angula and Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila were already informed of the outcome of the investigation in 2007.The NUNW congress resolved that all those responsible for DCP losses be brought to book. The congress also echoed the recommendations of the Namfisa investigation, resolving that the entire management and the board of trustees of the GIPF be suspended and that the President launch an inquiry. Congress also decided that the workers’ lost money must be recovered ‘from those concerned and that they must be held to account in their individual and collective capacities’.At the congress the NUNW Central Executive Committee (CEC) tabled a report saying it was not the union’s ‘responsibility to hide things and sweep them under the carpet pretending to want to protect the union while in reality we are out to protect our friends who stole from the workers’. Namfisa implicated several union leaders in its investigation, claiming conflict of interest.