Work together to mend the harm
MATHEW LUNGAMENI, CHAIRMAN AND RICHARD MBAHA, SECRETARY OF THE NAMIBIA FISHERMAN UNITED ASSOCIATION TOGETHER WITH ERICA BEUKES, DIRECTOR OF THE WORKERS ADVICE CENTRE WRITE:
We together with the Workers Advice Centre, write this international open letter to all fishermen, the fishing communities of Lüderitz, Walvisbay and Swakopmund, workers of Namibia, trade unions, political parties, the nation of Namibia, the nations of Iceland and Norway, the ILO, Aljazeera, the media and the President of the Republic of Namibia.
We wrote to the Iceland Government and Iceland's human rights organisation on the damage caused to the whole Namibia by the corruption of Samherji and the government of Namibia. We ask for co-operation with the Namibian fishermen and the people to investigate the loss of thousands of jobs and the harm to the fish resources.
We had to work together to mend the harm.
They did not answer. It is clear that they stand with their company.
Iceland and Norway greeted the scandal with racism. Their justification was that Namibia was a total corrupt country. The only way they could deal with Namibia was through bribery. Namibian frontmen went to jail, Icelanders, Norwegians and the Namibian Cabinet are free.
Reports say that they paid bribes worth N$150 million to the Namibian government to get quotas of N$2,5 billion. They used factory ships which caught the whole year's quota in one day. For N$150 million the Icelandic company got many billions of dollars. No tax was paid.
A Norwegian bank was also reported to be involved in the corruption and money laundering. Samherji is reported to have held fish feasts every year. Namibian children and adults look for food on the Lüderitz rubbish dumps where expired food is dumped. Lüderitz exports nutritious food to the world.
Iceland financed the election campaigns of Swapo. They justify their employment of Icelandic workers on their factory ships by saying Namibians are lazy.
It is not true that Namibians are lazy. Namibian fishermen and mineworkers have maintained the fishing and mining industries until now without migrant labour from other countries. Fishermen are forced to work 21-36 hour shifts.
Our community should realise that the fishing scandal is only a very small picture of the government corruption in the whole country. In Lüderitz, Pescanova, a Spanish company pay only N$300 instead of the legal N$1 200 levy per metric ton of fish caught.
The ocean patrol boats have been docked, and the crews stay on land with full pay.
Fishcor buys useless second-hand boats form Europe at higher prices than new boats. The boats cannot be used and it is reported that some of the overpaid money comes back to Namibia.
The Cabinet changed the law to allow the Minister of Fisheries to issue quotas as he wished. The whole Cabinet is involved. The Minister is only a frontman in the Iceland scandal. But, the Government does not resign.
It is true that the Namibian Government is the main culprit in destroying the economy because it holds legal responsibility and power, but it does not clear the Europeans.
We, the more than 4 000 fishermen, were illegally dismissed in 2015 when we went on strike due to 21 hours shifts, bad payment of overtime, night-out allowances and unsafe conditions.
The government, together with opposition parties who had divided fish quotas amongst themselves, blocked us to get our case into a court of law. When we asked for review in the Labour Court they gave us a judge who had shareholding in a fishing company. He took the case out of the Labour Court into the High Court, which had no jurisdiction in labour matters. We are applying for a fair hearing and his removal.
The NFUA's proposals for an agenda going forward are:
1. Reports on the known situation
2. An inquiry into fishing management
3. An inquiry into the fishermen's strike of 26 October 2015
4. Mechanisms for effective public monitoring and control of fishing
5. The law, working people and the judiciary
6. Tax evasion and Namibia as a tax haven
7. Organisation and programme of the working people
You are welcome to put forward proposals.
We together with the Workers Advice Centre, write this international open letter to all fishermen, the fishing communities of Lüderitz, Walvisbay and Swakopmund, workers of Namibia, trade unions, political parties, the nation of Namibia, the nations of Iceland and Norway, the ILO, Aljazeera, the media and the President of the Republic of Namibia.
We wrote to the Iceland Government and Iceland's human rights organisation on the damage caused to the whole Namibia by the corruption of Samherji and the government of Namibia. We ask for co-operation with the Namibian fishermen and the people to investigate the loss of thousands of jobs and the harm to the fish resources.
We had to work together to mend the harm.
They did not answer. It is clear that they stand with their company.
Iceland and Norway greeted the scandal with racism. Their justification was that Namibia was a total corrupt country. The only way they could deal with Namibia was through bribery. Namibian frontmen went to jail, Icelanders, Norwegians and the Namibian Cabinet are free.
Reports say that they paid bribes worth N$150 million to the Namibian government to get quotas of N$2,5 billion. They used factory ships which caught the whole year's quota in one day. For N$150 million the Icelandic company got many billions of dollars. No tax was paid.
A Norwegian bank was also reported to be involved in the corruption and money laundering. Samherji is reported to have held fish feasts every year. Namibian children and adults look for food on the Lüderitz rubbish dumps where expired food is dumped. Lüderitz exports nutritious food to the world.
Iceland financed the election campaigns of Swapo. They justify their employment of Icelandic workers on their factory ships by saying Namibians are lazy.
It is not true that Namibians are lazy. Namibian fishermen and mineworkers have maintained the fishing and mining industries until now without migrant labour from other countries. Fishermen are forced to work 21-36 hour shifts.
Our community should realise that the fishing scandal is only a very small picture of the government corruption in the whole country. In Lüderitz, Pescanova, a Spanish company pay only N$300 instead of the legal N$1 200 levy per metric ton of fish caught.
The ocean patrol boats have been docked, and the crews stay on land with full pay.
Fishcor buys useless second-hand boats form Europe at higher prices than new boats. The boats cannot be used and it is reported that some of the overpaid money comes back to Namibia.
The Cabinet changed the law to allow the Minister of Fisheries to issue quotas as he wished. The whole Cabinet is involved. The Minister is only a frontman in the Iceland scandal. But, the Government does not resign.
It is true that the Namibian Government is the main culprit in destroying the economy because it holds legal responsibility and power, but it does not clear the Europeans.
We, the more than 4 000 fishermen, were illegally dismissed in 2015 when we went on strike due to 21 hours shifts, bad payment of overtime, night-out allowances and unsafe conditions.
The government, together with opposition parties who had divided fish quotas amongst themselves, blocked us to get our case into a court of law. When we asked for review in the Labour Court they gave us a judge who had shareholding in a fishing company. He took the case out of the Labour Court into the High Court, which had no jurisdiction in labour matters. We are applying for a fair hearing and his removal.
The NFUA's proposals for an agenda going forward are:
1. Reports on the known situation
2. An inquiry into fishing management
3. An inquiry into the fishermen's strike of 26 October 2015
4. Mechanisms for effective public monitoring and control of fishing
5. The law, working people and the judiciary
6. Tax evasion and Namibia as a tax haven
7. Organisation and programme of the working people
You are welcome to put forward proposals.
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