About 60 B2Gold mineworkers at Otjiwarongo staged a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday evening to oppose the newly proposed government pension preservation fund.

The workers marched along the Dr Hage Geingob and Rikumbi Kandanga avenues at Otjiwarongo on Tuesday chanting, ‘down the new government law on pension preservation.’

Led by the leadership of the Mineworkers Union of Namibia (MUN) during the demonstration, the workers handed over a petition to Otjiwarongo Mayor, Gottlieb Shivute, who represented the Otjozondjupa Governor, James Uerikua.

In their petition, they explained that as workers in the mining industry, they undergo dismissals at any time or reorganisation of the mine structures and or are even forced to retire.

“It is this same pension money we normally use to pay off our houses and other properties or survive on during that difficult period of being without a job, therefore, we will not allow any person to regulate our pension money,” they said.

The workers called on the government not to include them in any decisions related to pension preservation using any ratio as well and demanded it to cancel the entire draft proposal.

In the draft proposal, a person can only access 75 per cent of the pension money at 60 years and 25 per cent when an employee changes jobs or resign before 60 years.

“This same government is allowing some companies to pay less or nothing towards the workers’ pension contribution, yet now it wants to regulate workers’ pension and force workers to access their pension money only after they turn 60 years,” they said.

The B2Gold workers then threatened to withdraw their saved pension money should the government continue with its preservation pension law.

More than 500 workers of the B2Gold Mine who are members of MUN signed the petition which was handed over to Uerikua.

Government is still busy consulting the public on how best it should implement this proposed pension preservation law which was introduced last month.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency