Fishing companies want land for 1 500 houses

Two of Namibia’s major fishing companies, Tunacor and Seawork, intend to construct 1 500 houses for their employees in Walvis Bay.

Both company’s intentions were discussed at a Walvis Bay council meeting recently, and while there was some opposition, the proposals have been noted and the process to discuss the materialisation of the plan was agreed to by the majority of the council’s management committee.

The serviced land applied for is just north of Walvis Bay to the southern boundary of the fuel jetty site. Tunacor wants to build houses for 1 000 of its 3 000 workers, while Seawork wants to provide 500 of its 1 700 workers with affordable housing. According to the agenda, both companies want to buy the land from the council to build the houses on. The applications were submitted to the urban development ministry for approval, after which the process to establish the sites as townships will start.

Walvis Bay has tens of thousands of people on waiting lists for houses currently renting and occupying shacks. The fishing industry is the biggest employer in town, with many of its workers living in shacks – and who are among those on the waiting lists. Besides this, the fishing industry is also pressured to provide housing to their workers, amongst other social responsibilities, to “tick off” certain conditions required by the fisheries minister when it comes to the consideration for quota allocations.

Tunacor CEO, Peya Hitula, told Erongo 24/7 that the company is 100% Namibian owned and is currently the largest employer within the fishing sector.

“Our intentions are to avail our employees an opportunity to affordable housing. We are in the fishing industry and not in the construction industry and we can only try to facilitate decent housing to our employees,” he said.

Hitula emphasized that Namibia’s housing issue needs to be addressed by the government and all the national stakeholders.

Seawork financial director, Jurgen Sander, said that the company’s intention is to cut out the middleman and provide housing “as affordable as possible” for its workers in town – as close to work as possible.

Objections raised at the last council meeting were, amongst others, that there were others also waiting for land with accusations leveled against the companies of wanting to take the land from others on the waiting list. The council was told to rather give land at Farm 37 east of the town and closer to the airport.

Sander said that would not be fair to most of the workers who have to walk to and from work, and that the company’s transport expenses were already stretched.

“We are very happy about the positive feedback till now from the municipality, and we will soon be presenting more details of this housing project to them,” he said.

Namibian Seamen and Allied Workers Union (Nasawu) president, Paulus Hango, commended the intentions of the companies and said the union and its members have also petitioned the municipal council since last year to give the applicants the land.

“Many Walvis Bay residents in need of houses were those working in the fishing industry.”

He added that those opposing the idea, and wanting the land to be given at Farm 37 were unreasonable, as workers needed to be close to town and their place of work, while their children also needed to be close to school, and other amenities.