{"id":304141,"date":"2021-05-15T09:05:55","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T07:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informante.web.na\/?p=304141"},"modified":"2021-05-15T09:05:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T07:05:58","slug":"businesses-hard-hit-by-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informante.web.na\/?p=304141","title":{"rendered":"Businesses hard-hit by COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria David<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

PROMINENT businessman Veikko Haimbodi has called on the government to remove the COVID-19 regulations immediately, saying it\u2019s killing their businesses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a telephonic interview with Informant\u00e9 on Monday, Haimbodi pointed out that his construction business had to lay off at least 37 workers because there are no tenders.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Businesses<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cMany 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,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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Currently, Namibia\u2019s unemployment rate stands at 36.8%.<\/p>\n

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Statistics from the Ministry of Labour Industrial Relations and Employment Creation show that about 12 000 workers were retrenched in 2020 from 896 companies.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ministry made amendments to the legislation to allow crucial businesses to operate as \u2018Essential Service Providers\u2019 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mukubonda indicated that the ministry has also disbursed $ 2.5 million to 32 Entities during December 2020.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maria David \u00a0 PROMINENT businessman Veikko Haimbodi has called on the government to remove the COVID-19 regulations immediately, saying it\u2019s killing their businesses. \u00a0 In a telephonic interview with Informant\u00e9 on Monday, Haimbodi pointed out that his construction business had to lay off at least 37 workers because there are no tenders. \u00a0 \u201cThe machines …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":304128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBusinesses hard-hit by COVID-19 - Informant\u00e9<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"PROMINENT businessman Veikko Haimbodi has called on the government to remove the COVID-19 regulations immediately, saying it\u2019s killing...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/informante.web.na\/?p=304141\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Businesses hard-hit by COVID-19 - 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