Sankwasa laments lack of skills

The Deputy Minister of Works and Transport, James Sankwasa, says the ministry has no choice but to make use of junior Zimbabwean engineers to manage capital projects because Namibia does not have enough engineers.
His remarks followed an article titled “‘Inexperienced’ Zim engineers running the show” recently published by a local weekly.
According to this article inexperienced trainee expatriates are in charge of capital projects while Namibian engineers are overlooked.
Responding to the article in parliament this week, Sankwasa said: “The question is, if we don’t use them who we use? Who do we use if we don’t use these juniors?”
He added that the ministry was unable to fill many vacancies because of this skills shortage.
“In the ministry at the moment we have 87 qualified professional engineers and only have 37 nationals and 87 foreign nationals, the skills cannot balance. What does that mean? It means that the foreign qualified nationals government recruits as a country are not recruited for skills imparting but they become operational, instead of being used for development,” he said.
Ironically, the minister also admitted that the ministry had recently recruited 22 newly qualified engineers and was sending about 25 students to study abroad.
He added that the ministry had set itself a goal to train 300 students over the next three years.
According to the minister they sent 49 students to Brazil at the beginning of the year to study different branches of engineering.
An additional 140 are expected to be sent to Cuba pending negotiations about funding.
Sankwasa called on the government to review the secondary education system, because it is such that only a “special” learner can do mathematics.
“So now, how many schools are offering mathematics, how many teachers do we have that teach mathematics? Do we have qualified professional mathematics teachers at that level?” he asked.
He also questioned the budgetary provision for skills development, saying it is minimal.
“That brings me to this. We have budgets set for skills development. When the budget is brought to parliament for discussion, this House has the power to change the budget to suit the parliamentary direction,” he said.
Economist Omu Kakujaha-Matundu agreed that the country has a shortage of highly qualified professionals, which results in a very low execution rate of capital projects.
He warned that should the government decide to import skills, these expatriates must be highly qualified and must be vetted by local professional
bodies.

JEMIMA BEUKES