EDITORIAL
The National Petroleum Corporation (Namcor) like many other parastatals in Namibia has faced a fair share of financial troubles coupled with several scandals.
Despite re-branding a few years ago to give the company a new face and image among its audiences, it has remained in the midst of one storm after the other.
If it isn’t financial troubles, it is management failures and now it’s in the eye of a storm over alleged corruption by its former managers.
The scandal has now been popularly dubbed as ‘oilrot’.
This is being compared to Fishrot, the country’s worst corruption scandal which landed two ministers in prison together with few businessmen.
Every Namibian currently waits with baited breath to see how this scandal will pen out in the courts.
This week, we run a new twist to the company’s quest for a new future, one that is backed by profitability, transparency and accountability.
The latest is that the Acting Managing Director requested the board to give her an assigned car and a driver.
Good sources within Namcor say this is not something that the board has neither tolerated nor smiled at.
Rather they decided that the request must pass.
While there is nothing wrong with furnishing a sitting managing director with a car if that is part of contractual engagement, the issue may raise eyebrows if the request is outside contractual obligations of both parties.
As for a designated driver, that remains debatable because a company aiming to rise from the doldrums of loss-making and a bashed public image might need to be prudent about certain things.
These include assigning drivers to bosses.
Ideally it is a difficult one to call.
If the request has its framework in a contractual document one is perhaps within their rights.
If the company is struggling, the question is where and when do we draw the line between necessity and luxury?
Is it prudent for a company that is struggling to deal with losses to be purchasing luxury cars for top bosses?
These are some of the questions which make adherence to corporate governance in the public sector difficult to judge from outside.
The MD of the company would feel she is well within her rights to ask for such, but the public that is struggling to deal with the company’s battered image may see this as an unnecessary luxury.
The key issue is not necessarily whether the company should or should not oblige to such requests but rather at what times should these be entertained.
If Namcor is swimming in a pool of money and paying huge shareholder dividends then definitely they can but in their current state, it is questionable.
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