An E-Bay experience

While the strikers sat on the rocks in front of the Namdeb offices in Luderitz, the work at Elizabeth Bay was running smoothly.
About 35 Namdeb and Cosira staff members are currently taking apart 2500 tons of steel. The steel is going to be converted into E- Bay’s new, improved, eco-friendly plant using only 250 tons of steel.

Ten years after constructing the current plant, Mr. John Adams and his team at ADP Construction, designed a new plant according to the latest technology.

When one first enters E-Bay, sees two huge piles of diamond gravel and then right in the middle there is a huge steel construction.
Mr. Barry Jones of Namdeb, describes E-Bay as the Namibian Bagdad due to the bare landscape and the constant battle between nature and steel.

Here, even the toughest mineworkers can fall in love with the nature that surrounds them. With the old mine only a short distance away, wild springbuck and even a brown hyena will come and say hello when you least expect it. Mrs. Cynthia Gomez helps to maintain the balance between man and nature as the Namdeb environmentalist at E-Bay.

The E-Bay and Oranjemund mines are currently the only two large working mines belonging to Namdeb. However only Oranjemund is in full production at the moment. That is why Namdeb is trying to get E-Bay back in production as soon as possible.
On 1st August 2011, the deconstruction of the plants started, and since then the workers have been working day and night to complete this enormous task on time. Some of the Cosira workers and other contractors have not seen their families in 3 months, but this has not interfered with their passion for their work. They hope to finish this task by the end of November in order to start building the next plant early the following month.

Mr. Deon Strydom, Cosira’s site manager, said that it took about a week and 17 Lorries to bring Big John – the biggest Cosira crane from South Africa to E-Bay. They also had to bring in an engineer from China to help with the construction of Big John. This will take about 2 weeks to complete. The signal red crane is Cosiras pride and weighs around 350 tons. It is sure to be seen from a distance.

After seeing the demolition, one wonders what Namdeb will do with all the excess steel. The answer is simple. Namdeb plans to transport the steel to Oranjemund where it will be processed, painted and then reused at Sendingsdrift, at the New Recovery and New Floating Treatment Plant.

Not only does Namdeb save loads of money by this process, but they also show the Luderitz community that they can recycle. This also helps to provide job opportunities especially to young adults that do not have any tertiary education.

At this stage there are quite a number of local people that are doing in-service training, not only at Namdeb but also at Cosira. Their willingness to work hard has secured their position in their new jobs.

What about the strike? The men and the women we saw at E-Bay were not influenced by it. If one has good secure employment with enough benefits, you keep your mouth shut, your head down, and you hang onto that job!

It is a pity that the strike gave such a negative view of Namdeb. If more people had the opportunity to go and see what really happens over the hill and with what pride these people work, day to day, they would definitely sing a different song.