Members of the Great Erongo Community Development Association (GECDA) have embarked on a silent demonstration since Monday, 14 June over the alleged unfair recruitment and the lack of benefits from the Corporate Social Investment (CSI) of the Namibia Navachab Gold Mine.
In an interview with Nampa on Thursday, the association’s director, Raymond Tjiuongua said residents of Karibib, Usakos, Otjimbingwe and surrounding settlements have not received any tangible benefits from the mine, adding that the protest will continue until the community receives positive commitments from the mine.
“The mine is extracting a high-value mineral resource from the land on which our ancestors lived. We believe that the conversion of natural resources into human resource capacity holds great potential to change our resource-based economy in a knowledge-based economy and our concerns such as unfair unemployment and the issue of the mine ploughing back into the communities of Karibib Constituency needs to be addressed by the management of the mine,” he said
He said the community members of the Karibib constituency is negatively affected by the lack of involvement and disregard from the side of the mine in terms of sustainable development projects and any sort of training for communities to priorities employing community members of the constituency.
“The reality is that there is no contribution in the area of uplifting the communities There are no signs that Navachab mine is part of the community. Even Karibib does not reassemble a gold mining town,” Tjiuongua said.
In a recent interview with Nampa, the mine’s communications consultant Usi //Hoebeb said, “To meet its mining license conditions especially with regards to CSI, the mine has developed and continues to implement a CSI strategy. Navachab mine has for the period 2019/2020, spent over N.dollars 3 500 000 on CSI. This mainly included support to the farming communities, education and youth empowerment, community endeavours such as the Garden Project which employs 27 previously jobless women from Karibib.”
The protest is currently underway on the B2 national road in the Karibib constituency area.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
