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Want some insight in Namibian politics? I am no expert but have 16 years (1995-2011) of writing on Namibian politics in The Namibian newspaper and can probably offer you a bit more than you know about the who's who in the Namibian political zoo. You will also find a few articles commenting on other issues of concern in the country. Hope you find it interesting. - Christof

Thursday, April 7, 2011

‘It Don’t Matter If You’re Black Or White’

THE latest Employment Equity Commission (EEC) report has shown that race is still a big issue in Namibia.

This means racial tension will continue to rear its ugly head in the workplace too.
We need to ponder seriously where we are heading, as a nation, with employment equity and affirmative action. Are they to any benefit for the nation, or do only a selected few reap rewards from these policies? And should we still be talking about both, 21 years after Namibia’s Independence?
The latest EEC annual report states that the workplace still reflects “severe” racial and gender bias, with 59 per cent of executive directors and 43 per cent of senior management positions occupied by white Namibians.
The ECC is also worried that 50 per cent of new recruits at executive director’s level were whites. Overall, black people accounted for 34,4 per cent of all recruitments in management positions.
Employers can offer various reasons for the above scenario and most prominent among them is the need for experience.
Some, though, are just not complying with employment equity requirements in their reports which are as far apart from the situation on the ground as east is from west. Many of the big companies actually have outside consultants ‘cooking’ the reports for them whereas the actual staff positions are the opposite of what’s stated on paper!
But has the Affirmative Action (Employment) Act, passed in 1998 by the Namibian Parliament, been used effectively enough to redress the imbalances at the workplace? Is replacing a white person with a black person the only solution to redress the discrepancies we still experience?
I thought the legislation was intended to “foster fair employment practices with regard to matters such as recruitment, selection, appointment, training, promotion, and equitable remuneration for previously disadvantaged people”.
This does not necessarily mean kicking out the whites, or does it? Because removing them for the sake of replacing them with blacks could lead to tokenism and many black Namibians don’t want to be seen as people who are just there for window-dressing. They want to be proud managers who know what they are doing. They also want to be respected in their positions because of their capabilities and not because they are there for show.
So, appointing the politically connected but demonstrably mediocre and incompetent individuals to key positions could result in the dropping of standards and services.
I am not saying that blacks are of inferior standard in terms of management quality. No.
But employment equity or affirmative action should not be shaped by the stigmatisation of whites and protection of the new politically well-connected blacks at the expense of the actual needs of the general populace.
If so, we are bound to be kept hostage by the idea of historical victimisation. This can ultimately remain fertile ground for continued racism, not only in the workplace but also society as a whole.
We have many examples in some State-owned enterprises where, through affirmative action, incompetent, inexperienced and academically challenged blacks have been employed with dire consequences.
We should also guard against what former DTA MP McHenry Venaani described as “black apartheid” where the affirmative action policy operates in infinity and will ultimately lead to serious discrimination against others. That will be seen as using the policy to exact revenge for what the “masters of earlier days have done” as Venaani put it.
That is why there is a need to give a timeframe for the implementation of the policy whereafter all should be treated equitably.
One of the most famous songs of the late Michael Jackson has a line which says: “It Don’t Matter If You’re Black Or White”.
Having been independent for 21 years, some of us should start saying “it doesn’t matter whether I am black or white”. A white child born at or after Independence should start having the same opportunities as his or her black counterpart.
I believe that, after the years that we have had it, affirmative action should begin to be limited to capacity-building programmes focusing on expertise and skills to guarantee opportunities for all.

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