Africa-Press – Namibia. THE chiefs council of the Shambyu Traditional Authority in Kavango East acted outside its powers by refusing to sign an application of one of the contenders for the chieftaincy of the Shambyu community to be appointed as traditional leader.
This is one of the findings of judge Thomas Masuku in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Thursday.
Masuku concluded that the Shambyu Traditional Authority acted outside its powers by refusing to sign the application which Maria Haindaka, the traditional leadership candidate of one of the clans of the Shambyu royal family, needed to submit to minister of urban and rural development Peya Mushelenga to be appointed as leader of her community.
The judge also found that Mushelenga allowed the traditional authority’s chiefs council to dictate to him who the designated traditional leader of the Shambyu community had to be. That could not be allowed, Masuku remarked.
The findings were made in a judgement on an application in which Haindaka asked the court to set aside Mushelenga’s decision in November 2019 to approve the application of leadership rival Sofia Mundjembwe Kanyetu to be designated as chief of the Shambyu Traditional Authority.
Masuku set aside Mushelenga’s decision and referred the matter back to him, to decide how to resolve the leadership dispute in the Shambyu community in terms of the Traditional Authorities Act and to designate a new traditional leader for the community.
The judge also set aside the Shambyu chiefs council’s decision in November 2019 to not sign Haindaka’s application to be designated as traditional leader.
The chiefs council should within 15 days assist Haindaka to complete the required application form for her designation as chief, and should do everything necessary to enable her to file her application with the minister, Masuku ordered.
Haindaka has been nominated by the Mukwahepo clan of the Shambyu community’s Vakwankora royal family to succeed the late Shambyu chief Angelina Matumbo Ribebe, who died in June 2015. The royal family’s Mwengere clan, from which all of the Shambyu chiefs since the 1940s have come, nominated Mundjembwe to succeed the late chief.
