GERP ‘doomed from the start’

The Government Employment Redress Programme (GERP) risks going down in history as "an expensive Namibian government programme and governance failure", according to a briefing paper published on Thursday by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

The paper, 'The GERP – A Critical Overview and Assessment' by IPPR research associate Frederico Links, reviews six years of the fisheries redress scheme launched in 2020 in the wake of the Fishrot scandal. It concludes that "available information suggests that the way the GERP has been implemented and managed has doomed it from the start".

The scheme is set to end in April 2027. President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah announced this at a fishing industry engagement at Walvis Bay in April, telling attendees that "come April 2027, the redress programme will have to come to an end". According to the IPPR, representatives of former fishermen had expected the event to be an opportunity to fix the programme and "left angry and confused".

Disputed numbers

Government has said more than 2 400 former fishermen were employed under the scheme, with 2 483 reported in June 2025 across the hake and horse mackerel sub-sectors. The IPPR disputes the nature of that employment.

Over the past two years it interviewed and surveyed more than 120 participating fishermen and found "almost all of them are stuck in cycles of idle employment", paid a stipend of about N$4 000 a month to sit at home while designated companies hold GERP quotas.

The institute says it has seen employment contracts in which a designated company states it cannot guarantee work but will pay a basic salary "for as long as there is a GERP quota".

The paper cites a September 2025 letter in which labour minister Wise Immanuel called on fisheries minister Inge Zaamwani-Kamwi to investigate the scheme, writing that paying workers who are neither attending work nor legally absent "does not only border on misrepresentation but may as well constitute potential corrupt elements, if not fraud". An Office of the Auditor-General audit of the GERP followed, with a report expected by the end of December 2025. No report has been made public.

The IPPR also questions why between 600 and 700 former workers of United Fishing Enterprises, a former Namsov subsidiary, were excluded from the scheme despite repeated petitions to government since 2020, while former workers of Samherji subsidiaries and Fishcor-owned Seaflower Pelagic Processing were absorbed into it.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform has not responded to an IPPR request for information submitted in June 2025, despite repeated follow-ups.

The paper proposes that the GERP experience be used for governance reform, including long-term employment pathways, psycho-social support and stronger accountability mechanisms. It quotes Nandi-Ndaitwah's closing question at the April engagement: "As we conclude this engagement, the question is what will we do with what we have learned".