Women rule roost at govt, report finds

While government structures employ almost twice as many women as men, a significantly larger portion of men find themselves in management positions.

This according to a report by the Public Service Commission (PSC) for the 2021/2022 financial year, which found that more men than women served in the management cadre at offices, ministries and agencies (OMAs) and regional council (RC) level, with women occupying only 46% of these positions.

The total number of women employed by government - excluding the Namibian Police, the Namibia Defence Force (NDF) and the Namibia Correctional Service (NCS) - currently stands at 45 017, compared to only 26 288 men.

Accounting for the security cluster, except for the Namibia Security Intelligence Agency, 18 673 individuals were employed by the NDF, 15 056 by the Namibian Police and 2 619 by the NCS.

“Currently, 63% of staff members in OMAs and RCs - excluding military, uniforms and political office-bearers - are women while 37% are men. On the other hand, in both OMAs and RCs, men hold 54% of management cadres while women hold 46%.”

It added that the number of staff members from special groups such as person with disabilities and marginalised communities is low in the public service.

More women also found employment within RCs, compared to men.

“The total number of positions filled in the RCs stood at 1 304, with male employees occupying 608 positions, while female employees occupied 696," the report said.

Ministerial breakdown

The education ministry was found to employ the highest number of individuals within government, with 43 517 of the approved positions filled. This while the works and transport ministry reported the second highest number, with 2 835 positions filled, and the finance ministry employed 2 390 individuals.

Conversely, the Anti-Corruption Commission filled the lowest number of positions (106), followed by the ministry of defence and veterans affairs (149) and the National Planning Commission (152).

The ministries of safety and security and home affairs – then separate entities - did not provide the PSC with employment statistics. Neither did the ministries of agriculture and defence, the National Assembly, the National Council nor the Kunene and Zambezi RCs.

Job creation

Various OMAs requested the creation of 156 posts on a full-time basis, and 4 773 temporary posts. The majority of the requests for temporary positions were made by the health ministry (2 605), followed by the agriculture ministry (1 926).

The requests for the filling of temporary posts left government with a theoretical financial impact of N$1 billion, the report noted.

Over the reporting period, 23 appointments were made at OMAs, 278 promotions were recorded, 424 employees were transferred, 244 staff members opted for early retirement and 86 staff members were discharged due to ill health.

No interest

Meanwhile, the PSC found that government workers showed little appetite to declare their business interests outside the public service.

“Declaration of private interests by public servants is a challenge. For the past two or three years, staff members showed no interest to complete the declaration forms as well as applications for engaging in private business and/or remunerative work outside employment in the public service,” the report said.

In certain instances, government also failed to fill positions in critical, scarce fields because it could not retain Namibians in those positions.

“The remuneration packages for some scarce fields is not attractive enough to cater for and retain the Namibians in those posts,” the report said.

It further added that misconduct cases are taking too long at the PSC, “which sometimes results in staff members retiring from the public service before a final recommendation is received”.