Maria David
PROMINENT businessman Veikko Haimbodi has called on the government to remove the COVID-19 regulations immediately, saying it’s killing their businesses.
In a telephonic interview with Informanté on Monday, Haimbodi pointed out that his construction business had to lay off at least 37 workers because there are no tenders.
“The machines are standing idle because we have no work to do. As a result, machinery will not be operating so we had to let people go,” he said.
He said he feels as though business people and private companies are doing so much more to create employment opportunities for young Namibians, but the government is hampering their efforts.
“Many of us suffer the blow of municipal bills which leads to water cuts, bank chargers continue unbothered and the expenses are increasing on a daily basis, while businesses are dying a slow death,” he added.
Currently, Namibia’s unemployment rate stands at 36.8%.
Statistics from the Ministry of Labour Industrial Relations and Employment Creation show that about 12 000 workers were retrenched in 2020 from 896 companies.
Of this number, 2 842 lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the rest of the retrenchments were caused by other economic factors.
Responding to the call by business people to abolish the regulation, trade ministry spokesperson Elijah Mukubonda, said the pandemic has turned lives upside down in every sector Industrialization and Trade are not an exception.
Mukubonda stated that despite the pandemic, the Ministry remains committed to delivering on its mandate and a number of developments to enhance a conducive working environment for business.
“The Ministry made amendments to the legislation to allow crucial businesses to operate as ‘Essential Service Providers’ for much-needed services to our people. We also did some amendments on the sale of alcohol in order to maintain and minimize the risk of the Virus infection,” he said.
Moreover, he noted that the Ministry rolled out the Katutura Start-Up Centre that enrolled 120 Start-Ups of which 80% are female, and provided 600 COVID-19 Start-Up grants of N$ 15 000 each.
“A total of N$ 9million was disbursed to mostly informal Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and we distributed 1 600 PPE Kits to Informal Economy Operators across the 14 Regions of our country,” he said.
Mukubonda indicated that the ministry has also disbursed $ 2.5 million to 32 Entities during December 2020.
