President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has questioned why foreign nationals continue to be employed in positions that qualified Namibians can fill, citing failures by officials to enforce the country’s employment and immigration laws.
Speaking during a community town hall meeting in Swakopmund, Erongo Region, on Friday, Nandi-Ndaitwah said Namibia already had laws regulating the employment of foreign workers, but these were not being consistently enforced.
Her remarks followed concerns raised by a resident who questioned why foreign nationals were being employed as machinery operators and safety officers while qualified Namibians remained unemployed.
The resident cited Chinese nationals operating machinery and a South African national reportedly employed as a safety officer at a local company.
Responding to the concerns, Nandi-Ndaitwah said foreign nationals should only be permitted to take up positions where the required skills were not available locally.
“You can only bring non-Namibians to perform the work that is not available in the country, but ourselves, we are violating our own laws. Who gives the visas to those people? That’s the problem,” she said.
The President questioned why officials responsible for issuing work permits and enforcing immigration regulations continued to authorise the employment of foreign nationals in positions that Namibians could perform.
“If our law is saying only where you don’t have a Namibian, you allow foreigners, why do those of us who are responsible allow that? There’s a big problem, whether it’s Chinese, whether it’s South Africans. So, we have to change our fellow Namibians,” she said.
Nandi-Ndaitwah stressed that the concern was not about the nationality of foreign workers but the failure of Namibian authorities to implement existing laws.
She said foreign nationals working in Namibia were expected to comply with the country’s laws, just as Namibians working abroad were required to respect the laws of their host countries.
The President urged residents to submit written complaints detailing suspected violations, saying this would allow her office to investigate specific cases and determine what action should be taken.
She maintained that greater accountability among officials responsible for enforcing employment and immigration regulations was necessary to ensure that qualified Namibians were not overlooked for available jobs.
