Minnow party's leader against bailing out SOEs

THE president of the Christian Democratic Voice, which secured one seat in the National Assembly in last year's election, says he has a problem with loss-making state-owned enterprises which are repeatedly receiving financial bailouts.

“I have a problem with SOEs that get bailouts. Since independence NBC [the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation] gets bailouts but spend much on salaries. When will they be self-sustainable?” Gotthard Kandume said.

He told The Namibian he would ask public enterprises minister Leon Jooste to do a skills audit of the NBC, and also to check if there are 'ghost employees' at the public broadcaster.

Kandume also lashed out at Air Namibia, which despite numerous bailouts is loss-making. “They are flying out of the country. When are they going to be self-sustainable? When will they pay dividends?” he said.

According to Kandume, TransNamib was trying its best to be self-sustainable. “At least TransNamib is trying its best unlike NBC," he remarked.

Kandume suggested that loss-making SOEs should be privatised.

He further said that the funding of SOEs will be questioned.

“They [SOEs] should not play with taxpayers' money,” Kandume said.