Namport resolves industrial dispute

THE INDUSTRIAL action at the Namibian port of Walvis Bay was only a minor glitch in the harbour's sea cargo flow, according to Jerome Mouton of port authorities, Namport.
It was a strike on the Friday, which lingered on over the weekend, he told FTW. But we are a five-days-a-week port, he added, so the loss of the one working day was not critical - with everyone back at work on the Monday.
The action - breaking Walvis Bay's 15-year record of industrial stability - was a wage complaint by workers.
But we settled it, said Mouton. We gave them an increase, and at the same time signed a new agreement.
This we expect to return us to the state of stable industrial relations at the port - a good selling point for us in terms of a willing and reliable workforce.
Mouton also rejects recent stories in the international press of his port becoming a staging point for military logistics in the brewing civil war in Angola. It was all rubbish, he said, at the same point expressing a feeling of regional dissatisfaction with the recent actions of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in returning Angola to a state of strife.
A recent SADC (Southern African Development Community) meeting in Namibia had this on the agenda, he said, and put itself firmly against what Savimbi is doing.