Lahja Nashuuta

Some civil servants would stop at nothing when given the opportunity to blow their horns, and they would sing like canaries at the drop of a hat. 

But others only take pride in their work, and prefer to wax lyrical about their respective projects and their collective efforts as team players.

This week, New Era ran into Ndeshihafela Nghishekwa, and discovered she
undoubtedly falls under the latter category of public servants. 

Nghishekwa is a private secretary for the director of administration, finance and human resources at the //Kharas Regional Council. 

She is a devoted civil servant, whose primary aim is to serve her employer with commitment and zeal.

She is responsible for administration duties, ranging from scheduling appointments to communication and liaison within the institution and decentralised functions. 

Nghishekwa is also responsible for handling correspondence to and from the office of the director, as well as minute-
taking and re-routing urgent matters,
among other tasks.

She joined the public service in July 2014 as an administrative officer at the Ministry of Labour and Employment Creation, social welfare division, in Lüderitz. 

She later got transferred to Windhoek for the position of data capturer under the same directorate.

Before the public service, Nghishekwa worked as a front desk officer and cashier at the Windhoek Country Club Casino during the evenings while doing full-time studies during the day. 

“I was at the time also an SME
entrepreneur, buying and selling various products,” she revealed.

Having joined the civil service might
have been one of the best things to have happened to her – and today, she is proud of it. 

“I always had a dream to work in the banking sector, but when an opportunity was granted to me to take up employment as an administrative officer at the pension office, I took it up and in turn, I grew a passion
for assisting the public, especially the vulnerable and disadvantaged people whom I was responsible for,” she said.

She points out job security as one of the most valuable benefits in today’s ever-changing and uncertain economy.

Nghishekwa, a 34-year-old mother of two and an entrepreneur, is an administrator par excellence. 

She obtained an Honours degree in Business Administration (specialising in Banking and Finance) from the University of Namibia in 2015 and an MBA from the International University of Management in 2019. 

Last year, she obtained a Diploma in
Early Childhood and Pre-Primary
Education from the Namibia College of Open Learning.

Challenges

There is no job without challenges, and Nghishekwa said making clients understand there are procedures and processes, having limited powers to assist the public, as well as seeing clients go without assistance because of limited resources or unforeseen circumstances, are the challenges that come with her job.

She, points out that what is most satisfying about her
job is being able to calm an angry client, assist a client in finding a solution, and be a backbone and trusted employee.

“Being a front desk officer/secretary is a huge task because you are the first person the public encounters, and the institution’s customer service is rated from there. It is very important to leave an impression. I take my job very seriously to attend to customers, and I go beyond and above to solve a problem,” Nghishekwa maintained.

Asked how her administration expertise was beneficial to //Kharas Regional Council and the public, she  said, “I have strong analytical skills and can solve problems at my level. Most of the time, I take it upon myself to address issues as they come in, in consultation with the head of the affected department. I do not leave matters pending, as my supervisor is mostly loaded with commitments and work 
I act immediately in every situation and treat every situation, individually and on its own merits,” she said.

Misconceptions

Queried on the perception that all civil servants are lazy and largely ineffective, Nghishekwa said, “What I came to learn as a civil servant is that we work with limited resources, processes and procedures. This causes a lot of delays in service delivery. Automatically, this leads to offices being seemingly unproductive. A delay in the first stage of the service leads to a backlog in the whole process. This is something the public will not easily or immediately understand,” she said.

About her stay in public service,
Ngishekwa maintained that it is difficult for her to put a timeline on how long she is still planning to work for the government because one never knows what the future holds.

“I still have a lot of plans within the government to assist the public with their social needs with the experience and the relationships I have built with other public servants. However, I don’t believe that I will
be in public service forever. I see public
service as a stepping stone for me and when the time is right, I will leave and make space for someone else to come experience an opportunity that I was granted,” she said.

On her wish list, Nghishekwa plans to pursue studies in therapeutic counselling to open doors to a profession in counselling, which, in her observation, very few people venture into, even though the expertise is much-needed in the communities.

-lnashuuta@gmail.com