Struggle kids dry ‘pap’ in the sun while waiting for work

THE 35 ‘struggle kids’ currently camping out at the offices of the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service at Oshakati say they are starving.

The group claims they have been camping there for the past three months.

Last week, some members told they sometimes dry pap in the sun to eat when they completely run out of food.

They will not go home until their employment demands are met by the government, they said, adding they do odd jobs to put bread on the table.

“We are doing this in a group, so that each one of us would benefit. Sometimes people will give us N$200, and we are six or seven. The money will not be enough,” Nambala Nikodemus said.

He said when they run out of food, he sometimes goes home to Omusimboti village near Oshakati to fetch more.

Oshana governor Elia Irimari promised them employment at the Oshakati abattoir, TransNamib and an agricultural scheme, the group said.

They said Irimari assured them of this after they repeatedly went to his office demanding jobs, but has not told them when they would commence working.

“We want the jobs we have been promised … some of us don’t have families as our parents died in the [liberation] war. We came with people who are not our relatives, and they are now mistreating us,” they said.

One of the group members, however, is allegedly the daughter of a former minister who is currently the governor of a northern region, while another one is the daughter of a former constituency councillor.

Irimari says he has been helping the struggle kids with food and jobs in the private sector, but the group is growing.

Some even come all the way from the Omusati region to camp at Oshakati.

“Some of them were in the police and other government institutions. There were also people who wanted to give them jobs when schools were being built, but they refused, saying it was colonialism,” Irimari said.

earlier this year reported that ombudsman John Walters and the Khorixas Constituency Youth Forum considered an interdict to set aside and terminate a Cabinet decision directing that certain jobs be reserved for the so-called children of the liberation struggle.

In an affidavit, Walters said the children of the liberation struggle do not fit the affirmative action criteria that may be applied to racially disadvantaged people, women and people with disabilities.

They do not meet the conditions set out in the Veterans Act either, he said.

“The fact that the reserved jobs within the public service are not subject to advertisement and are therefore specially set aside only for the children of the liberation struggle . . . the result of the decision is that other qualifying Namibian citizens are denied the opportunity to compete for those vacant posts,” Walters said.