Former United Fishing workers have threatened to march from Walvis Bay to Windhoek if the Government fails to respond to their petition within 72 hours.
About 60 of the 600 former employees made the announcement during a demonstration organised by the Mining, Metal, Maritime and Construction Workers Union, where they handed over a petition to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform in Walvis Bay.
Former employee of United Fishing, Lahya Hangula, said, "We demand clarity on why United Fishing workers were excluded from the government's redressing programme, despite being part of the Namsov Group of companies, because we know and understand that United Fishing was 100% part of Namsov and our names were published in The Namibian newspaper on 25 March 2020 under the Ministry of Fisheries' public notice listing retrenched Namsov employees."
While pilchards remain under moratorium, the former employees are demanding that the government allocate horse mackerel or hake quotas for processing so that employment opportunities can resume for companies willing to employ them.
"Why was Etosha Fishing given quotas in 2018 under the same moratorium while United Fishing was not included despite producing the same product? Exclusively from Namsov redressing, why were other Namsov companies included in the government's employment redressing programme but not United Fishing?"
They are also demanding six years back pay.
The union gave the ministry 72 hours to respond.
"Media and the police and the traffic must already prepare themselves that the workers are going to march back down to Windhoek, because we don't have the resources to pay for buses, so we are going to organise all the workers that are from Walvis; we need to march down to Windhoek," said Joseph ||Garoeb, MMMCWU's secretary general.
The petition was received by the Deputy Director in the ministry, Aaron Shitayi.
"I will forward it to the relevant offices today because you expect to get feedback by Friday, so I will make sure that I will send it through today, okay?"