Business Reporter
THE Construction Industries Federation (CIF) and the Metal and Allied Namibian Workers Union (MANWU) continue to engage with the Government to cancel projects that have led to the exclusion or will exclude majority Namibian-owned contractors, mainly due to steep financial prequalification or qualification requirements.
The primary plea was addressed to President Dr Hage Geingob, as the head of state. Due to time constraints, he was urged to cancel all projects that are currently excluding local contractors and then re-advertise them.
The projects that have been called to be halted include:
Road Authority TR7/1 rehabilitation project, covering a 30km stretch of road between Karibib and Usakos.
Namwater projects, which involve the construction of water treatment plants at Oshakati, Rundu, and Ohangwena.
In addition to this, the federation and the union also called for the halting of the construction of the Namfisa head office, the Nampower project for the 70MWp plant in Rosh Pinah, and the N$266 million tender awarded for August 26/Ministry of Defence by the Ministry of Education.
For most of these projects, local contractors were not shortlisted due to high financial requalification requirements.
The CIF and MANWU explained that these projects were not in the interest of the Namibian construction sector, as they undermined the optimal performance of the sector.
The two organizations explained that if the above projects are to be canceled, the financial and technical criteria would need to be reviewed for each of the respective projects and subsequently be re-advertised into smaller lots, along with more realistic technical criteria.
As many government authorities are involved, the CIF and MANWU appealed to President Dr Hage Geingob to address this matter with the respective government entities and stakeholders involved.
Apart from it being a procurement matter, it is also a question of how grants and loans were sought and negotiated and possibly even a matter of Namibia’s foreign policy and related bilateral and multilateral relationships, the two associations said.
CIF and MANWU requested that if finances are sought externally, finances in the form of grants or loans should be on terms that support the development and further capacitation of Namibian businesses.
“All the developments are extremely disappointing and undermine Namibia’s own contractors. Namibian contractors, as well as professionals in the construction sector, are in desperate need of work. There seems to be no understanding and no deliberate attempt to optimally support our local industry. This not only includes majority Namibian-owned SMEs but also majority Namibian-owned mid-size contractors and majority Namibian-owned large-size contractors. On the contrary, it appears that our own contractors, in particular the large-size contractors, are deliberately undermined. This can bring about the insolvency and eventually bankruptcy of our established and well-capacitated contractors,” said Bärbel Kirchner, chief executive officer of the CIF.
