WINDHOEK, 9 Jun 2006 (IRIN) - The fate of 5,000 Namibian workers at the Ramatex garment factory remains in the balance after the government rejected an ultimatum by the Malaysian owners to buy the plant or see it close."The Namibian government has decided not to buy the factory - there is no local expertise in the country to keep it going," said Evilastus Kaaronda, secretary-general of the National Union of Namibian Workers. Kaaronda serves on a technical committee dealing with the Ramatex issue, chaired by Prime Minister Nahas Angula.
The deadline for the Ramatex proposal was last Wednesday, but the factory was still in operation on Friday.
The firm, the largest private-sector employer in Namibia, wanted the government to pay N$490 million (US$82 million) for the factory and its equipment, and warned that if the government declined, all workers would be laid off, and machinery and equipment dismantled and shipped out.
Alternative proposals by the government's technical committee were not accepted by a Malaysian business delegation. "These proposals cannot be disclosed at this stage. Once everything is settled, the results will be made public," Penda Namuhuja, special assistant to the prime minister, told IRIN on Friday.
One issue Ramatex boss Albert Lim has laid at the government's doorstep was that Namibian workers were not as productive as their Asian counterparts, and were allegedly "untrainable".
"This criticism surfaced in the meetings the committee had so far, but we find this reasoning of the Malaysians unacceptable," retorted Kaaronda.
African garment and textile producers have been unable to compete with low-cost Asian rivals for the lucrative US market after Washington was forced to lift quotas last year.
The Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) lashed out at Ramatex for pulling out of Namibia. "This decision is a major kick in the teeth for Namibian workers, who earn starvation wages and have gone for three years without a pay increase," said federation general-secretary Neil Kearney in a statement last week.
"Once heralded as a major economic boost for Namibia, the Ramatex investment has turned out to be a drain on the country's economy, a danger to its environment and a menace to its exploited workforce," he charged.
Ramatex opened shop in Namibia in 2002 in a bid to take advantage of the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which gave apparel from African countries preferential access to the US market.
The Namibian government promoted Ramatex as an important part of its export diversification strategy, with former trade and industry minister Hidipo Hamutenya playing an instrumental role in luring Ramatex to Namibia with incentives such as a 99-year tax exemption and subsidised water and electricity rates.
The company invested US$150 million in a factory on the outskirts of the capital, Windhoek. Another $20 million of public money was ploughed in to provide the necessary infrastructure and services for the plant.
Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN
Copyright IRIN 2006
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