Africa-Press – Namibia. Landless People’s Movement president, Bernadus Swartbooi, has slammed Urban and Rural Development Minister James Sankwasa, for firing Omuthiya councillor Johannes Ndeutepo.
He said the minister acted prematurely, without involving the council, when he fired Ndeutepo for not residing within the jurisdiction of his office.
Speaking at a media engagement onTuesday, Swartbooi discouraged the President’s appointees’ “intimidation” of duly elected councillors nationwide since he took office.
“He is working with authentically elected leaders. And therefore, his task should have been to go down and sit and engage with them and find a way to remedy the situation first, without the drastic action being taken. Perhaps if he had spoken to the person, there would have been other facts that would have mitigated the situation as a whole,” he stated.
LPM made it clear that councillors must follow the law, as stipulated in the Local Authority Act, Section 13 (1) (h), which states, “A member of a local authority council shall vacate his or her office if he or she ceases to reside or only temporarily resides within the local authority area after having been elected as member of such local authority council.”
He said, but both regional and local authorities do not answer to Sankwasa.
To the councillors, he said they must notify their political parties and the minister to make any changes pertaining to their residence.
A local daily reported that the Swapo member, after finding a job, Ndeutepo, moved to Windhoek in the middle of last year.
It is alleged his duty as a councillor was not interrupted, and he received an allowance.
He also served on the management committee, which runs the council.
Swartbooi highlighted that, like this case, some councillors may find themselves employed outside their domiciles.
Due to this nitty-gritty, “the council must be involved in that area to debate and thoroughly unpack every factual issue around this matter before a decision is taken,” he said.
He highlighted that a huge number of regional councillors, even in Windhoek, for many years, have been elected for one region or constituency but would be living in another area.
“These things came as a habit from Swapo,” he added.
Manifesto
Meanwhile, the LPM leader criticised that the Swapo party manifesto is not the supreme law, but the constitution is.
This comes after LPM councillors in //Kharas and Hardap, including Erongo and Kunene, were allegedly summoned by the minister and told that the Swapo manifesto is the document people should follow in the governance structure.
He added that the central [Cabinet] government is not the only government and does not operate in silos; rather, it is to operate alongside regional and local authorities.
“How do they want to impose a document that they, as a party, have agreed upon to say that is the development document that we must follow? Those people who voted for parties like LPM at the regional and local level voted for a different political programme of action,” he said.
Swartbooi further urged for space for opposition parties to implement their political programme and vision: “Where these programmes converge, so be it, but where there are fundamental divergences, those divergences must continue to be implemented at the local terrain, as has been the expressed electoral wish of the local and regional communities.”
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