Public Service Union of Namibia (PSUN) Secretary-General Mathew Haakuria on Thursday said the National Housing Enterprise’s (NHE) unaudited financial statements is the reason why employees’ demands are not being met.

Haakuria made the claims during a media conference in the capital on Thursday to address a looming strike by NHE employees.

“The board indicated that it will consider this payment only after NHE provides audited financial statements for the fiscal year 2021/22,” he said.

According to Haakuria, this effectively means that workers will have to wait for the audits to be completed before their demands are considered.

He further stated that this comes after NHE was unable to offer employees salary increases due to financial constraints and instead chose to offer them a once off payment of N.dollars 15 000 per employee.

“During the 2021/22 fiscal year, the NHE negotiating team considered the precarious financial situation in which NHE finds itself and decided not to compete for a salary increment because there is no guarantee that those increases will be maintained in the future because NHE’s financial availability was questionable,” he explained.

Haakuria said the one-time payment was agreed upon by negotiating teams and was included in the approved budget for the 2021/22 financial year.

According to Haakuria, the company however unilaterally reversed its decision and refused to engage the union further.

“The board of the NHE further refused to engage, especially the union, to explain why they reversed the decision. Especially when it is a decision that only addresses one component of the approved budget, the one dealing with improving worker conditions,” he said.

He added that as a result of this, the PSUN referred the matter to the Office of the Labour Commissioner, which issued a certificate of an unresolved dispute.

“During the 30-day window period, the employees revised their pay-out amount to N.dollars 10 000, and the board again refused to accept this revised proposal,” he said.

He further said PSUN believes the NHE Board is punishing workers in the bargaining unit rather than acting against incompetent management that is unable to produce audited financial statements on time as required by law.

Nampa contacted NHE’s Acting Corporate Communication and Marketing Manager Tuafi Shafombabi, who stated that NHE is aware of the claims made against the company but declined to respond further, saying NHE is dealing with the matter internally and will issue a response in due course.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency