Denver Isaacs
30 September 2008
GOVERNMENT has approved the injection of N$14 million into the coffers of TransNamib after an illegal strike earlier this month left the transport company unable to pay workers' salaries.
TransNamib acting CEO Mike Kavekotora yesterday confirmed that the national transport company recently approached Government for a bailout of N$52 million.
Government, Kavekotora told The Namibian yesterday, approved an amount of N$14,2 million from the central Government's contingency fund and suggested that TransNamib approached the Development Bank of Namibia for the rest.
TransNamib was unproductive for a week after workers, led by the National Union for Namibian Workers (NUNW) and the Namibia Transport and Allied Workers' Union (Natau), downed tools in response to the board's suspension of CEO Titus Haimbili last month.
The strike crippled the country's transport industry, with TransNamib saying in a court affidavit that it was losing N$5 million a day.
The strike also negatively affected workers' salaries.
First the company announced that the strikers would not be paid for the week they were on strike.
A second shocker hit the workers on Friday, when they did not receive their salaries on the last Friday of the month as usual.
"Unfortunately, our liquidity position was bad after the strike.
But seeing as most of our debtors start paying us over the period of the 25th to the 30th, we decided to make use of this grace period to get enough money into the account before releasing it again," Kavekotora said.
He expressed the hope that the company's approach to the Development Bank would be successful, shrugging off reports that commercial banks have been wary of extending loans to TransNamib after its suspension of Haimbili.
He said although individual bank managers may have raised concerns, the banks themselves "have remained very professional at all times".
In a statement issued in reply to queries about the banks' position in August, TransNamib spokesperson Aily Hangula-Paulino said: "Following the granting of special leave to the CEO ...
various sectors, including financial institutions, raised their concerns regarding the running of the business and continuation of service delivery".
Sources indicated that commercial banks were concerned over what was deemed too much instability in the TransNamib leadership for them to provide overdraft facilities.
Haimbili has been placed on "special leave" until the end of October, with the company investigating allegations of corruption against him.
Haimbili on Friday approached the District Labour Court in an attempt to appeal his suspension, but had his application thrown out after the court found it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
When asked about the progress of the internal case against the CEO, TransNamib's Hangula-Paulino said no formal disciplinary charges had been laid against him by the weekend.
The investigation continued, she said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Namibian. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
