NSA blames enumerators for payment delays

The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) has attributed salary payment delays to enumerators whose paperwork was not in order.

It follows complaints that the NSA was slow to pay enumerators after the completion of fieldwork.

The agency had pledged to pay salaries by the end of October, and despite delays, the agency confirmed that it has now paid all of its 13 000 enumerators.

Delicate process

Addressing the matter, NSA spokesperson Iipumbu Sakaria said every effort was made to ensure payments were made as agreed, but that incorrect paperwork delayed the finalisation of some payments.

“For us to pay, because it is public funds and all eyes will be on us, we decided deliberately that to make sure we pay the right people, we pay the right amount, and we tried to pay at the right time,” he said.

“Everyone received their training allowance, and as soon as people went into the field, they received their field allowance. What created a delay was the salaries... you needed each and every document to be there for us to pay you,” Sakaria said.

“We could not pay the wrong monies to the wrong people. We decided it is public funds, so let’s pay it to the right people – the right amount, at the right time,” he added.

“Now, [the] first challenge with the training allowance is that, for the majority of the people, when they came to report themselves, their documents were not in order. We, for example, needed bank confirmation letters certified, we needed your identity document certified. While people were being trained, there were still efforts being made to make sure all the documentation was proper so that people could get paid,” he said.

Racism incidences few

According to Sakaria, enumerators generally did not experience exceptional problems conducting fieldwork, with the process going mostly smoothly.

“The attitude was more based on either I don’t like you or your government, or I applied and you didn’t take me, or my father wanted to give his car and you didn’t take me," he said.

He added: "Other [incidences] were influenced very much by racism – no don’t come onto my land, I don’t need your people here. How did we deal with that? The law says you must be counted,” Sakaria explained.

He said incidences of racism were few and far between, however, with a majority of Namibians participating in the census process.

“One of the things that I think was blown out of proportion – we didn’t have as many refusals from the white community as we think; the only difference is that when they refused, it was recorded and it made headlines, but the majority of them, they participated. So it’s the minority that refused to participate,” Sakaria said.