The right to work is a basic human right and not for a privilege few: an open letter to the Right Honorable Dr. Hage Geingob

Dear Editor,

Thank you for allowing me to share my views with my fellow Namibians on the issue of unemployment. Just less than a week ago, the National Planning Commission (NPC) organized a National Employment Creation Summit on 30 September 2010. The gathering brings together different stakeholders including private sector as well as NGOs to debate, review and find ways to address the crisis of unemployment in the country. Whilst the event was staged to find solutions to the high unemployment in the country, the debate did not remain focused on findings solutions , but somehow got lost in the issue of numbers.

In Dr. Hage Geingob’s speech which was supposed to address the component of Public Policy and Interventions for employment creation the Hon. Hage Geingob lashed out and diverted attention from the real problem by doubting the figures and referred to it as being part of the lies by quoting Benjamin Disraeli.  What was more disappointing was the failure of the representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare’s to explain to the public how the Ministry arrived at the figures and what they meant in real terms. One should perhaps not blame the public for interpreting the figures in whatever way different individuals deemed fit, precisely because the custodian Ministry representatives were silent during the debate.  Namibia is a signatory to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the definition that we are using to capture unemployment is the internationally accepted definition by the ILO. The main question that is used to capture unemployment is “if one had worked for pay/profit or family gain in the last seven days for at least one hour” prior to the survey date. The criteria used include further probing questions that are intended to filter out students and those who have jobs to return to.  When one use this ILO definition as it is, it is clear that many people will be counted as employed. People who do odds jobs are counted by this definition as employed as well. It is therefore clear that the current quoted statics of 51.2% might not be the correct figure. The situation might be much worse than currently presented.  For how long should we as Namibians continue to use this imported definition? What does it mean in our context?

The ILO calls for decent employment not just a mere employment that puts people below the poverty line. We as Namibian need to define what it means to be unemployed at different stages. Being unemployed at 19 years of age is not the same as being unemployment at 50 years. Equally, being unemployment in a village is not the same as being unemployed in urban area. Gender, age, educational qualification, rural/urban divides are all variables that play an important role in what it means to be unemployed or employed for different people. Further qualitative assessments need to be conducted to ascertain the true meaning of unemployment for those affected.

Surveys such as the Namibia Labour Force Survey (NLFS) should be accompanied by qualitative assessments which will than assess the magnitude of the nature and scope, there by identifying different intervention for different sub-groups of the population.  What Honorable Minister should also understand is that the 51.2% is based on the 1.7 million people after the sample weight. The survey uses the 31^st August 2008 as the reference date and thereafter more people were retrenched due to the global economic crisis which was still ongoing at the time and some sectors of the economy have not yet fully recovered. I expected the Hon. Geingob to have a better understanding of these economic woes, rather than being in denial of the truth therefore avoiding the issue at hand.  Even if the unemployment was 10% it should still be one of the government’s top priority amongst other pending issues in Namibia.  What happened to the notion of ‘an injury to one is an injury to all?’

Some discussions at the summit also centered on education and training and lack of skills. A lot of emphases is often placed on education including training and it has proven to be futile. On average it takes graduates either from Unam, Polytechnic or other Higher Learning Institutions 6 months to a year and half to get a job (sometimes 2-3 years to land a descent job). The emphasis should be put on the learning institutes to train according to our market needs. Institutions such as Unam should work more closely with employers. It would certainly be naïve to assume that education alone would solve the unemployment problem.  You can still add the figure from the 2008 LFS that about 10% of tertiary graduates are now unemployed.  Thus without structural economic changes, even highly educated people are not be able to find work.

Another avenue of job creation which was explored is the SME. Prior to the summit, the Bank of Namibia held its 12^th symposium under the theme: SME Development in Namibia. This area Honorable Geingob is faced with multi-dimensional problems which need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It is indeed a missed opportunity that you were not present at this important meeting to hear the cries of thousands of Namibians who have been trying to venture into SMEs. What was most shocking to learn was that the Central Bank had even turn down the establishment of the SME Bank which was aimed at helping entrepreneurs to access funds in easily ways.  

Honorable Minister, I am in agreement with you on the following points: that it was not right for the media to wrongly interpret the figures by saying half of the Namibian population are unemployed. The correct interpretation is half of the people within the labour force are unemployed and one should take into cognizance of the fact that Namibia has a young population of which around 40% do not meet the working age group yet. I also concur with you that we need timely statistics to base our opinions and policies formulations. The 2008 Labour Force Survey had been ready a year ago but because of government bureaucracy and long procedures of approving national reports, the report was delayed.

The President in his speech which was read by the Prime Minister called for a collective approach from both government and all the role players in job creations, but government bosses blame the private sector as not doing enough to absorb the mass of the unemployed Namibians into the labour force despite the governments continuous efforts in creating an enabling environment for them. It is very clear that those who are in the driving seat of our economy have failed the nation. 

In conclusion, unemployment is a serious concern that affects all Namibian people. Thousands and thousands of Namibians go to bed on empty stomach everyday and most resort to crime as a means of survival. This letter calls on the Honorable Geingob to be proactive and work closely with other stakeholders to find a collective solution to the problem at hand. Instead of doubting government’s own statistics (which were already presented to Cabinet where Dr Geingob could have raised his questions), it would be more useful to focus on some structural changes to the economy as proposed by the recent NUNW congress and the initiatives on “Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA). Statistics are a useful tool and they should not be disregarded, but they are just one variable amongst many. These statistics came from a government Ministry and hence should be regarded as credible.