The Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) has identified discrepancies between the wages paid by certain contractors and service providers and the minimum wage requirements outlined in the Labour Act and the Procurement Act.
To address the alarming issue, CPBN said it will be implementing stricter enforcement measures to guarantee compliance with the established minimum wage standards.
“Non-adherence to minimum wages, certain contractors and service providers are found to underpay their workers, disregarding the Labour standards or undertakings they agreed to in the written undertaking of section 138 of the Labour Act and Section 50 (2) D of the Procurement Act,” said CBPN acting Administrator, Head and Chairperson Amon Ngavetene.
He noted that the Board is collaborating with clients to engage non-compliant contractors, stressing the importance of adhering to labour standards and rectifying worker underpayments.
“Clients are encouraged to rigorously monitor contract adherence and ensure corrective actions are taken regularly,” he said.
This comes as CPBN has disbursed N$8.1 billion worth of tenders with contracts valued at N$7.1 billion awarded to Namibians.
In total, CPBN awarded 32 procurement projects (competitive and direct procurements) to the value of N$8.1 billion from 1 April 2023 to date.
During the period under reporting, CPBN was monitoring 146 contract implementations.
During the period under reporting, CPBN was monitoring the implementation of 146 contracts.
Out of these, 84 contracts, constituting 57.5% of the total, were on track with a deviation of less than 10% acceptance.
13 contracts, making up 8.9% of the total, had fallen behind or were off track, exhibiting a deviation between 10% and 25%.
Additionally, 30 contracts were less than three months into their implementation phase. Three contracts were practically completed or in the defect liability period.
Lastly, reports were not received for 16 contracts according to the Board’s monitoring and evaluation statistics.
