Construction industry on its knees

THE construction industry is on its knees and begging government to pay its N$1,8 billion outstanding debt for work already done, saying that one-third of sector workers have already been retrenched because of depressed conditions.

Pleading their members' case yesterday, the Construction Industries Federation (CIF) of Namibia said that 63% of businesses have either closed down, are dormant, or have scaled down operations drastically. “Between 1 September 2016 and 31 March 2017, a minimum of 30% of the workforce was retrenched,” the federation said in a statement. The CIF said the situation was likely to get worse, “unless government finds a way to intervene.” “If by the end of June 2017 no new tenders are being awarded, 67,39% of the responding businesses will have closed down, are dormant, or have scaled down drastically, and close to 40% of all employees in the sector will have lost their jobs.”