Namib Desert Diamonds (NAMDIA) has revealed that the diamond sales and marketing company has been dragged to the Labour Commissioner by its former founding Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kennedy Hamutenya.
This comes amid reports that Hamutenya is challenging the company’s board decision not to renew his employment contract after 5 years at the helm of the diamond company.
“On 30 June 2022, Mr. Hamutenya referred a dispute to the Labour Commissioner against NAMDIA. As a result, all matters pertaining to the tenure of the CEO have become sub judice and we shall, for now, refrain from comments on this issue,” NAMDIA Spokesperson Beverley Coussement said on Monday.
The state-owned diamond company’s General Manager of Sales and Marketing, Lelly Usiku is currently acting CEO following the expiry of Hamutenya’s contract last month.
Hamutenya was appointed in July 2017 to lead NAMDIA on a five-year term after having been headhunted from the Ministry of Mines and Energy where he was the Diamond Commissioner and was the principal advisor to the Namibian Government on diamond policy.
He was a key player in the negotiations between the Namibian Government and De Beers, which resulted in the signing of the Diamond Sales and Marketing Agreement in May 2016.
NAMDIA was established out of an agreement between the government and De Beers in 2016, to verify whether Namibia was getting the best value of its diamonds by going onto the open market.
