Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) and the National Youth Service (NYS) will soon conclude a partnership agreement, which will see the NYS provide basic maintenance services at NWR resorts across Namibia.

Maintenance, or rather the perceived lack of it, has become a source of numerous complaints at most NWR resorts. 

While acknowledging this issue, NWR Acting CEO Epson Kasuto states that the institution faces several challenges.

The main one is the Procurement Act, as approval to procure can take between three weeks and three months.

"Starting from the user department through the Procurement Management Unit and through the Procurement Committee, of course, depending on the thresholds and so on, that takes time; it doesn't come easy. And then, of course, you also look at the manpower that you have. For a company of our size with footprints all over, our Procurement Management Unit is very small, probably four or five staff members in there. And you can imagine the workload or the delay that could come as a result of the manpower."

But that is about to change, following a meeting called by Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare and involving all state-owned enterprises. 

This meeting interrogated the Public Procurement Act and awakened a realisation of the need to foster greater collaboration between public entities. 

Following that meeting, NWR and NYS executives discussed collaboration where the NYS Production Unit and NYS-trained artisans do maintenance at NWR resorts to address logistical bottlenecks.

"We can resolve the time it takes to get a supplier on site by having a team from NYS that can be easily and rapidly deployed to address these issues. Also, what it is, is because it is state-to-state or public entity to public entity, we will be able to do cost-effective renovations, repairs and maintenance. Additionally, it is beneficial that the NWR is serving as a training ground for the trainees being trained by the National Youth Service. In this way, we are contributing to youth empowerment by providing training in the tourism sector, as well as potentially enhancing employment opportunities for young people."

What is the current status of formalising the collaboration?

"We're still trashing out the MOU because legal people have to put in their inputs. I think that is where we are at the moment. We did the scoping in terms of what we, the technical part of the work requirement, would be."