How switching off PDMS will lead to KeDezemba chaos
In 2002, the Ministry of Finance faced one of Namibia’s worst payroll crises. The system of payroll deductions collapsed, leaving thousands of civil servants - teachers, nurses, cleaners, and police officers - without take-home pay. Some went into negative balances after deductions. I can still see the faces of parents in long queues outside our office, pleading for help.That year showed us that manual payroll deductions were not just inefficient; they were inhumane. The Government of Namibia (GRN) responded by creating the Payroll Deduction Management System (PDMS), a central, automated safeguard. PDMS was ahead of its time, ensuring deductions were verified and capped so employees retained at least 35% of their salary. It ended chaos, prevented over-indebtedness, and gave employees access to regulated financial products. In short, it protected people.
Progress at risk
Today, that hard-won progress is at risk. According to the ministry’s notice of 10 October 2025, all aspects of PDMS will be run “in-house” from 1 December 2025 to 28 February 2026 while consultations continue. The central system protecting over 100 000 employees will be switched off, and payroll deductions for loans, insurance, union fees and more will be handled manually - right before Christmas.
December is when work slows across sectors. A handful of ministry staff would be expected to manually manage hundreds of thousands of payroll transactions during this period. The result is predictable: missed payments, insufficient take-home pay, loan defaults, cancelled insurance and employees left without life cover.
The systemic shock will hit 100 000 families instantly.
Heed the warning
This isn’t fear mongering. Before PDMS, lenders approved multiple loans in a single month, depleting salaries entirely. The ministry warned in the early 2000s that lack of deduction controls led to over-commitment and zero salaries. Without PDMS, there is no way to enforce the 35% take-home pay rule or track deductions across dozens of lenders and thousands of employees.
The solution is simple: keep PDMS fully operational while consultations continue. This preserves employee protections at no extra cost to GRN and avoids a repeat of 2002. Modernisation and transparency improvements can occur without dismantling the safeguards that families rely on.
As someone who helped build the first PDMS, I say this with conviction: switching it off on 30 November would recreate the chaos of 23 years ago. One hundred thousand employees and their families would suffer, and that at the worst possible time.
History is warning us. Will we listen?
* Dalene Heydenrych writes in her personal capacity is a former acting Accountant-General at the Ministry of Finance.