Staff Writer
NovaNam Fishing Company has sent home 1,800 permanent workers on forced leave attributing the move to government’s decision to halve its fishing quota.
Although the Windhoek Observer could not confirm the fishing company’s previous allocation, sources said the company had notified workers on Monday that they should stop reporting for work until it concludes negotiations with government over the slashing of its allocation.
“Nobody knows when we’re coming back; they said they need to talk to government. That is why when they told us to go home; they didn’t put up a due date when we can resume work.”
“They were informed that they are only going to get 50 percent of the quota they were usually getting. According to the company we can only work it for five to six months, then it is over.”
The developments at the company according to sources have caused the company to ground its vessels fleet and cut the number of employees per shift.
“The only department currently working at full capacity is exporting. The rest, including the vessels, all stopped. Hygiene, cold store, and frozen product departments operate through two shifts, with now only 30 people per shift.”
Insiders at the Luderitz based fishing company said the company had agreed to pay the affected workers 50 percent of their salaries, while those with leave days will be paid their full salaries.
“We were told, those who have a lot of leave days can put up their leave days if they want to be paid in full. If you don’t have leave days, you could get unpaid leave again in October, because we always shut down in October. October is a shutdown period all over the country; fishing companies don’t operate in October.”
NovaNam has around 2,700 employees.
Efforts to contact the company management over the development were fruitless.
The development at NovaNam comes as Walvis Bay-based Seaflower Pelagic Processing factory has also retrenched workers citing government’s decision to cut the company’s quota by half.
The issue regarding the allocation of fishing rights and quotas has become a contentious issue with the Fisheries ministry arguing that it did its best to accommodate all parties in its recent allocation.
