Political Perspective

I AM certain that most Namibians won’t weep tears of pity and compassion for former Agribank CEO Tjeripo Hijarunguru, who has resorted to the Labour Court to get himself a ‘golden handshake’ from the parastatal because he was forced to vacate his post.

Nor will he gain much in the way of public sympathy after saying his former salary of N$83 000 was ‘modest’; and presumably he feels his current remuneration of N$75 000 falls in the same category. THIS case once again illustrates the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots in Namibia, and how almost commonplace it has become to learn of the huge earnings of many of the axed top CEOs, most of whom continue to feel badly done by when they’re finally shown the door.Against the background that many have either performed poorly or not at all, or have been found guilty of what may euphemistically be called creative accounting, makes one lose the little sympathy one might have had.Unfair dismissal, someone told me recently, can affect the high rollers as much as the lowlier worker bees, but I’m not entirely convinced.It’s far harder to get rid of people in the top business echelons than it is to fire employees at the other end of the spectrum, particularly because those, like the abovementioned, have the financial means to engage in long court battles.I have questioned the fact that so many top managers and CEOs seem to run to the Labour Courts, which one tends to see more as the last resort of aggrieved workers on the lower end of the salary scales.Again I was told that the ‘fat cats’ had as much right as anyone else to lodge their grievances there.The former Agribank CEO has since obtained employment in the private sector where he is paid a whopping N$75 000 a month – not meagre by any stretch of the imagination! One therefore finds it hard to sympathise with what he would probably call his demise.Government seems to have problems setting a minimum wage, something which may be necessary to guard against the serious exploitation which still takes place in Namibia.I’d like to think they could set a maximum wage as well, especially when it comes to Government service and parastatals, most of which are bled dry by huge wage bills and the high costs of bureaucracy, at the expense of the taxpayer.There was an inquiry some time back, headed, if I remember correctly, by Minister Helmut Angula, part of whose mandate was to probe the remuneration packages of CEOs.This information has never been made publicly available, and only becomes known in cases when CEOs feel they have been badly treated and in the course of asking their former employers for more of the same.There remains a need to be transparent about this issue.Many people would like to know whether the earnings of most CEOs of parastatals are the same or similar, and how they are worked out, and whether salary is at all related to the fact whether the State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) in question is profitable or not! Are they all, for example, as ‘modest’ as that of the former Agribank CEO? I’d risk guessing that in fact there are those who are substantially higher earners, but that doesn’t necessarily make any of it right.Perhaps with the new promise by State House to make public all the findings of the manifold hearings and inquiries and probes and commissions held into one or other parastatal or SOE, we will learn more about our ‘fat cats’.There’s a lot of talk about ‘market-related salaries’, often as justification for such big pay packages.But again, I’m not convinced of the validity of this argument.The ‘market’ in Namibia is substantially different (and far smaller) than our South African counterparts for example.No reason therefore, why the CEO of Air Namibia should earn anything like the CEO of South African Airways.I mean, how many planes are we talking about here, just to illustrate the point.One for international routes and a couple for internal and regional routes.For this we need a CEO who earns a disproportionate amount? Never mind the phalanx of managers and executives just under him who earn probably only slightly less.Can’t the experts see why the airline can’t make money? Perhaps the head of the Anti-Corruption Commission can take this up as well.Let the reports be issued to the public and let them finally be the judge of whether paying these big packages to ‘fat cats’ is worth our while or not.THIS case once again illustrates the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots in Namibia, and how almost commonplace it has become to learn of the huge earnings of many of the axed top CEOs, most of whom continue to feel badly done by when they’re finally shown the door.Against the background that many have either performed poorly or not at all, or have been found guilty of what may euphemistically be called creative accounting, makes one lose the little sympathy one might have had.Unfair dismissal, someone told me recently, can affect the high rollers as much as the lowlier worker bees, but I’m not entirely convinced.It’s far harder to get rid of people in the top business echelons than it is to fire employees at the other end of the spectrum, particularly because those, like the abovementioned, have the financial means to engage in long court battles.I have questioned the fact that so many top managers and CEOs seem to run to the Labour Courts, which one tends to see more as the last resort of aggrieved workers on the lower end of the salary scales.Again I was told that the ‘fat cats’ had as much right as anyone else to lodge their grievances there.The former Agribank CEO has since obtained employment in the private sector where he is paid a whopping N$75 000 a month – not meagre by any stretch of the imagination! One therefore finds it hard to sympathise with what he would probably call his demise.Government seems to have problems setting a minimum wage, something which may be necessary to guard against the serious exploitation which still takes place in Namibia.I’d like to think they could set a maximum wage as well, especially when it comes to Government service and parastatals, most of which are bled dry by huge wage bills and the high costs of bureaucracy, at the expense of the taxpayer.There was an inquiry some time back, headed, if I remember correctly, by Minister Helmut Angula, part of whose mandate was to probe the remuneration packages of CEOs.This information has never been made publicly available, and only becomes known in cases when CEOs feel they have been badly treated and in the course of asking their former employers for more of the same.There remains a need to be transparent about this issue.Many people would like to know whether the earnings of most CEOs of parastatals are the same or similar, and how they are worked out, and whether salary is at all related to the fact whether the State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) in question is profitable or not! Are they all, for example, as ‘modest’ as that of the former Agribank CEO? I’d risk guessing that in fact there are those who are substantially higher earners, but that doesn’t necessarily make any of it right.Perhaps with the new promise by State House to make public all the findings of the manifold hearings and inquiries and probes and commissions held into one or other parastatal or SOE, we will learn more about our ‘fat cats’.There’s a lot of talk about ‘market-related salaries’, often as justification for such big pay packages.But again, I’m not convinced of the validity of this argument.The ‘market’ in Namibia is substantially different (and far smaller) than our South African counterparts for example.No reason therefore, why the CEO of Air Namibia should earn anything like the CEO of South African Airways.I mean, how many planes are we talking about here, just to illustrate the point.One for international routes and a couple for internal and regional routes.For this we need a CEO who earns a disproportionate amount? Never mind the phalanx of managers and executives just under him who earn probably only slightly less.Can’t the experts see why the airline can’t make money? Perhaps the head of the Anti-Corruption Commiss
ion can take this up as well.Let the reports be issued to the public and let them finally be the judge of whether paying these big packages to ‘fat cats’ is worth our while or not.