By Feni Hiveluah
Silenced by non-disclosure agreements and the threat of industry blacklisting, Namibians employed in high-stakes multinational ventures are increasingly forced to accept unaddressed pay disparities or risk their livelihoods.
Labour experts warn that without immediate statutory intervention, Namibia risks trading away the economic dignity of its workforce for the illusion of foreign investment.
Activist Michael Amushelelo argued that State oversight has failed because regulators have prioritised investor confidence over the constitutional rights and dignity of Namibian citizens.
“Our enforcement mechanisms, such as the Labour Inspectorate, are starved of enforcement teeth, politically constrained or wilfully negligent,” Amushelelo said.
He said that when government leaders treat foreign corporations with “kid gloves” out of fear of scaring away capital, they surrender national sovereignty and allow corporate exploitation.
According to Amushelelo, the persistent disparity in pay and benefits between Namibian workers and foreign expatriates in sectors such as oil and gas amounts to economic apartheid.
“Foreign direct investment (FDI) that enriches multinationals while leaving local workers on breadline wages is not investment; it is extraction,” he said.
Amushelelo stressed that Namibians were not asking for charity but equal pay for work of equal value.
In a letter received by Confidente from employees of TotalEnergies EP Namibia, workers alleged that Namibian recruits were hired at lower salaries than expatriates doing the same work, under the implied promise that their terms would improve once a final investment decision (FID) was reached.
Local staff reportedly worked for two to four years without medical aid or pension benefits.
Although new contracts now include these benefits, employees said they offered no back pay or restitution for years of under-compensation.
The employees, who requested anonymity, also raised concerns over a “13th cheque” system, arguing that it is not an additional bonus but a forced savings mechanism that reduces monthly salaries, with the deducted amount paid in December.
Labour expert Herbert Jauch said offering qualified Namibian professionals lower compensation while they perform identical work violates fundamental principles of equality.
“Under the ILO Convention on Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value, a practice of paying local staff significantly less than expatriates when they perform comparable work is outright discrimination on the basis of citizenship,” Jauch said.
He said delaying basic benefits such as medical aid and pensions until arbitrary milestones was exploitative and noted that excessive perks for expatriates reflected disregard for local workers.
Jauch further said that while a 13th cheque is not explicitly mandated by the Namibian Labour Act, it should be an additional benefit negotiated through collective bargaining, not a forced savings scheme.
He also pointed to enforcement gaps within the Ministry of Labour, the Labour Inspectorate and the Office of the Labour Commissioner.
“This fear of victimisation points to systemic gaps,” Jauch said.
He urged workers to join active trade unions, saying collective organisation was necessary to protect individuals from victimisation, particularly in workplaces where unions are weak or workers remain unorganised.
