PSUN demands NCS chief Hamunyela resign after Mariental crash kills 16

The Public Service Union of Namibia (PSUN) is demanding the resignation of Namibian Correctional Service (NCS) commissioner general Raphael Hamunyela after a road accident killed 14 officers and two civilians outside Mariental on Saturday.

Secretary general Ndjizuvee Haakuria says Hamunyela’s leadership allowed correctional officers to be crammed into one vehicle, which led to the accident.

“He should resign. He allowed a situation of bad logistical management to breed and an environment in which 12 officers were crammed into one vehicle,” he said at a press conference in Windhoek yesterday.

Hamunyela yesterday said he has no comment on a person or a group of people exercising a constitutional mandate.

“I have no comment on that. If the Public Service Union is recommending my resignation, it’s their right in terms of the law. They can do it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Haakuria called on the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security, the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs and members of parliament to amend legislation to allow law enforcement officers to be covered by the Labour Act.

The current Labour Act excludes police and correctional officers and members of the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) from establishing unions.

“The PSUN believes if our current labour law did not exclude the NDF, the Namibian Police and the Namibian Correctional Service, the tragic events of Saturday could have been avoided or mitigated,” Haakuria said.

He said the lack of rights of correctional service employees denies them the bargaining rights to refuse to travel in vehicles without safety mechanisms like seatbelts.

The union said it has called on the International Labour Organisation regarding the exclusion of correctional service personnel from trade unions, but this has fallen on deaf ears.

“The Public Service Union of Namibia believes from a labour perspective that Namibia’s labour law and the constitutive acts of these two institutions have failed these citizens and are denying them their trade union and labour rights,” Haakuria said.

Road safety activist Felix Tjozongoro earlier this week accused the government of negligence following the Mariental crash.

Tjozongoro, who previously worked as a manager at the government-run Namibia Traffic Information System (Natis), said he suspected the overloading of government vehicles is a regular occurrence.

Earlier this week, Hamunyela took the blame for the accident.

“I ask the nation to forgive me, the families to forgive me and everybody else.

I ask God to also forgive me, because he is the one who put me here with this responsibility. But let everyone help me to improve,” he said on Tuesday.

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