//Kharas Swapo councillors, council reconciliation fails
The //Kharas Regional Council on Friday met with three Swapo councillors, Susan Ndjaleka, Lazarus Nangolo and Thaimy Nanyemba, to seek reconciliation after a vote of no confidence was passed regarding the Swapo councillors at the end of March.
Regional council chairperson Joseph Isaack said the council passed a vote of no confidence in the Swapo councillors when it came to light they, who took the council to court for suspending them without salaries, were receiving payments from the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development.
Isaack says the councillors approached the ministry, who in turn obtained a legal opinion from the Office of the Attorney General and treasury and started to pay the councillors from the same month, July 2024, when the council discontinued their salaries.
Attempts to obtain comment from the Swapo councillors proved futile as their phones were not picked up.
Swapo councillor Lazarus Nangolo, at the time when the High Court ordered the councillors to be reinstated with salaries, said he could not comment then.
“I cannot comment yet because there was no council meeting yet to confirm our reinstatement, but there is also an issue of payments,” he said.
Isaack said the council realised there was dishonesty among the councillors.
“The Regional Councils Act says a councillor is supposed to receive renumeration only from the council, no other institution or body as that will be deemed illegal. And based on that, we passed the vote of no confidence,” said the chairperson.
He said, however, as the council and the Swapo councillors still have pending cases in court, they were summoned by line minister James Sankwasa to seek reconciliation and reach an agreement outside of court for the sake of development.
“At council we are still without a management committee. We asked the Swapo councillors to take up those seats, and in return we will withdraw the vote of no confidence.
“But the Swapo councillors countered by asking that the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) councillors vacate one seat at the National Council and give it to one of them to take up the vacant seats in the management committee. The LPM councillors felt they are in majority and can’t vacate their seat. The Swapo councillors then said ‘the status quo will continue’,” said the chairperson.
Since the 2020 regional and local authority elections, when LPM won four constituencies out of seven in the //Kharas region, the regional council has been without a management committee.
Swapo members abstained, saying LPM members who have the majority should serve on the management committee as the leaders who won the election with promises that they have the interests of the residents at heart, but they opted to take the salary of the National Council.
At the time //Kharas Swapo regional coordinator Mathew Mumbala said LPM cannot expect Swapo members to form the management committee, where the bread-and-butter issues of the residents are discussed and planned, while they run to the National Council for money.
“When you form your government you must form your Cabinet first, and the management committee is your Cabinet in the regions. That’s their primary responsibility, “ he said.
Isaacks said the Swapo councillors are now deemed to have resigned.
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