The Swapo Party has called on the Minister of Urban and Rural Development, Erastus Uutoni, to intervene in the ||Kharas Regional Council’s state of affairs, whose management committee has been dysfunctional since June last year.
The ||Kharas Swapo Party Regional Coordinator, Mathew Mumbala, called for the minister’s intervention during a media conference at Keetmanshoop.
This came after the LPM-dominated council on Thursday terminated what they called the council membership of three Swapo Party representatives, Lazarus Nangolo, Suzan Ndjaleka, and Taimi Amakali.
“The councillors were nominated by the Swapo Party, first to be candidates, and they were elected by the electorate at the constituency where they work. The councillors are not working for Mr. Isaack or for LPM, they are working for the community where they were elected and for the government. We want to hear where he got to terminate the term of office of an elected councillor.”
Joseph Isaack, the council’s chairperson, confirmed that the three Swapo councillors were relieved of their duties by a majority of four LPM councillors during a special council meeting.
“The management is the executive functionary, so those laws are not upheld by our councillors, I said alright, if that is the case, the law gives me the power as the regional council, say when the regional council takes by its majority a decision that is a council decision, and we just need a quorum to take a decision, so we took a decision seeing that the councillors don’t want to be part of any structures, any available structures in the council, so alright, in that case we have to terminate your term, not term, your membership in the council.”
Isaack also commented on the legality of the council’s decision.
“There is no provision in the law that has a punitive clause, but the Regional Council 22 of 1992 Act gives the council a mandate to take a decision. We take that by virtue of that section, the section said if the majority of the council takes a decision, that decision is the council’s resolution. Now there is nothing contrary to that, so if they say illegal, it is up to their decision.”
Mumbala also threatened to hold the council’s acting CRO, Bennie Diergaardt, accountable if he implements an illegal council resolution.
“Therefore, we call the acting not to implement the illegal things. He already stops paying our regional councillors travel allowances. We don’t care about that because they were elected.”
Approached for comment, Diergaardt says he was still waiting for the instructions from the council’s chair, adding he would also seek advice from the line ministry.
Leave a Reply