Aochamub takes over NBC
By Staff Reporter

Mobiles Telecommunications Namibia, MTC’ General Manager for Corporate Affairs, Albertus Aochamub, has been appointed Director General of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, NBC. He starts next month.

The NBC has been without a director general for almost a year. He takes over a technically insolvent company with ballooning debts and a chaotic asset register.

Government will have to pump in money into the cashstrapped NBC, whose monthly salary bill is nearly N$10 million per month. The NBC has about 500 employees His appointment was approved by Cabinet last month.

Chairperson of the NBC Board, Sven Thieme, described Aochamub as “a seasoned professional with nearly 12 years senior management experience,” adding that his experience would be a “critical block” in driving the transformation agenda of the NBC into the future.

Thieme said Aochamub’s appointment followed a “very thorough recruitment process which tested the competencies of qualifications, experience, key outputs, competencies/ measurements, skills, attributes as well as the affirmative action status.

“Mr Albertus Aochamub was the most successful candidate from a list of 12 applicants,” said Thiemen. “I am also pleased that we have lived up to our promise of announcing the successful candidate by the middle of July. This means that the new Board will be able to take up its task in terms of what it has been entrusted with by the Ministry.”

Aochamub promised to make a success of the NBC. “I am very delighted to be granted this opportunity to become part of a tremendous team of people who keep our nation informed, educated and entertained,” he said shortly after he was introduced.

“I do not doubt the enormity of the task at hand but I remain hopeful that with the involvement of all role players we shall succeed.”

The new Board was inaugurated last month and was tasked to restructure and revamp the administration structures and procedures, staff recruitment and promotion, financial management system, procurement and asset management of the NBC. This meant that the Board needed to develop a turnaround strategy that would streamline the operations of the NBC. Although the NBC has a well-established infrastructure that would have enabled it to generate adequate revenue for self sustenance, it continued to rely on Government funding.

But Thieme then promised to implement a turnaround strategy, and depending on the outcome, corrective measures, if not overhaul, would have to be made. He also promised to launch a new culture and craft the future with a robust strategy inspired by a great vision.

“And trust me, we don’t need to reinvent the wheels here. There are pockets of good work that have been done in the past and that we will take and build upon. We then need the ruthless implementation of the strategy. Many may think that this is a daunting task,” said Thieme.

Former NBC Director-General, Bob Kandetu was fired early last year, and Matthew // Gowaseb was appointed Acting Director General in the middle of last year. When he took over, the NBC had 366 permanent employees whose salary bill stood at N$5 million per month. In less than 10 months of his stay at the NBC, new recruitments and promotions pushed the salary bill up to nearly N$9 million per month.

NBC staff complement has risen to nearly 500 permanent employees, up from 366. That rise has pushed the NBC’s annual salary bill to nearly N$108 million. This year’s government subsidy was N$103 million.

NBC’s own contribution this year was N$35 million from the Marketing Division, and N$17 million from TV licences and other sales.