THE recent announcement of the Tender Board of Namibia that companies making use of foreign unskilled and semi-skilled workers will no longer qualify for Government tenders, was heartening news, and probably should have happened a long time ago.

In the words of the advertisement of the Tender Board "henceforth 100 per cent of all unskilled and semi-skilled labour must be sourced, without exception, from Namibia".

However, the way in which the Tender Board chose to make this very important announcement known to the public is highly regrettable and not in keeping with a transparent and accountable system of free flow of information from Government to people.

There was no official press release and apparently also no prior informing of stakeholders, merely a cursory advertisement placed in the Government-owned newspaper! Had staff of this newspaper not picked it up and written a news story about it, many Namibians would have been none the wiser about the decision. This is really not acceptable.

Secondly of course, although it is positive news that unskilled and semi-skilled jobs will be reserved for Namibians, at least from the point of view of companies tendering for Government jobs, we would not like to see that this heralds yet another 'anti-foreigner' sentiment of which the Ministry of Home Affairs, among others, already stands accused as the litany of complaints about documentation, especially vis-à-vis work permits and permanent residence applications, continues to escalate.

The point is that with regard to unskilled and semi-skilled workers, Namibia would not need to 'import' labour. We have an abundance of those who could work in such areas, and bearing in mind recent revelations of an over 50 per cent unemployment rate, we would do better to consider our own.

That having been said, Namibia continues to experience what many regard as a skills deficit. Due to a number of factors, perhaps Namibians leaving for the diaspora, as well as the fact that chosen fields of study do not render up sufficient numbers of qualified Namibians in certain areas of employment, we cannot 'go it alone' and turn our backs on any or all African or foreign expertise.

And unless decisions, such as the most recent one of the Tender Board, are not properly communicated and explained to our people, they may well result in sentiments which promote xenophobia, and this our country should avoid at all costs. We have seen the results of this in neighbouring countries, most notably South Africa in the recent past, and we cannot afford to have such sentiments manifest here.

Even the decision with regard to unskilled and semi-skilled workers, in operation with immediate effect as the advertisement stated, raises questions which still need to be answered.

There are obviously scores of foreign workers already employed as construction workers, among others. What will happen to such people and will the Government deal with them in a humane and appropriate way by allowing them at least to finish their contracts and be timeously informed that such will not be renewed in the future? We express the hope that this will be done in the right manner.

The decision, coming as it does nearly 20 years after Independence, begs the question as to how work permits were legally obtained or granted in the past for particularly imported unskilled workers when there have always been Namibians to fill such posts? If this has happened, the blame has to be placed squarely at the feet of Government, more particularly the Ministry of Home Affairs.

We would urge Government to more thoroughly inform the Namibian people, and indeed those foreign workers being hosted on our soil, to put everyone fully in the picture, so as to ensure that this new step is not used to inflame anti-foreign sentiments in the country.

There are many non-Namibians working in various echelons of the public and private sector who have done and continue to do good work, and we should not allow this decision to fuel anti-foreign sentiments concerning their further employment and assistance delivered to this country and its people.

But essentially the Tender Board decision will hopefully promote more employment in the ranks of unskilled and semi skilled Namibians like the hundreds who lost their jobs at Ramatex.