Africa-Press – Namibia. A CITY of Windhoek executive, who had initially quit his municipal job for a senior position at the ports authority – where he was later rejected two months into the job, says he feels vindicated.
O’Brien Hekandjo, a strategic executive at the City of Windhoek’s electricity department, resigned last year for a lucrative port of operations manager position at the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport).
Namport, however, terminated his contract after The Namibian reported that Hekandjo was facing disciplinary charges at the City of Windhoek. After realising that the Nam-port job was not there anymore, Hekandjo returned to his previous position at the City of Windhoek.
But there was a problem. Some leaders at the City of Windhoek, such as former acting chief executive officer George Mayumbelo, earlier said Hekandjo will not return.
“He voluntarily resigned and left last month. His resignation was processed and accepted. He has not been here since last month. He didn’t have to give reasons why he resigned,” he said. Things, however, changed after a reshuffle in the leadership of the City of Windhoek in December.
One of the city management committee’s first decisions last December under the leadership of the Independent Patriots for Change was to accept Hekandjo’s retraction and announce that his disciplinary hearing had been dropped.
“The management committee, on 14 December 2021, upon due consideration of the request, accepted the withdrawal notice of resignation of Hekandjo with immediate effect,” the municipality said in a statement then.
The municipality added: “The disciplinary charges levelled against Hekandjo, as was previously reported in local media articles, have been dismissed by the chairperson of the disciplinary committee.”
“I feel vindicated,” Hekandjo told The Namibian. He thanked the municipal management committee for accepting the retraction of his resignation.
“I am humbled by their trust in my abilities,” he said.
Before joining the City of Windhoek, he was also suspended from the position of chief technical services officer at the Namibia Power Corporation. Hekandjo denied any wrongdoing.
City spokesperson Harold Akweenye told The Namibian on Monday that the management committee accepted the retraction because Hekandjo decided not to take up the job offer at Namport.
The Namibian understands that initially the management committee did not accept Hekandjo’s retraction, but made a U-turn later. Akweenye, however, said from the onset, Hekandjo’s retraction never reached the management committee for consideration.
Hekandjo was charged with allegedly disclosing confidential council information. He was further accused of abusing his position of trust at the city. The charges emanate from an incident which took place in January 2018 during which Hekandjo allegedly disclosed the outcome of a recruitment process to one of the applicants vying for a city engineering job.
Hekandjo was chairing the said recruitment process. Despite the process, the city had not sanctioned the appointment, resulting in complaints and legal threats by the candidate against the city.
The City of Windhoek management committee has since moved on from Hekandjo’s troubled past. “It was a decision of the disciplinary committee to drop charges,” Akweenye said.
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