Sham Public Meetings
OVER the past few weeks, there have been notices in the local newspapers placed by the City of Windhoek, inviting residents to attend ‘informative and consultative meetings, to explain its programmes and operations and to seek input from the residents to the City’s projects in order to strategise on further course of action.’
The time of the meeting was indicated as 18h00 to 21h00. Being a resident of Eros, I decided to attend the meeting held at Eros Girls School on 13th November. I arrived at the venue at 17.55, and was the first person to arrive.
The only city representative to arrive on time was someone from the City Police, whose professionalism cannot be faulted. A few other people arrived between five and 10 minutes past 18h00 who were obviously from the city by their behaviour, but no-one introduced themselves, or indicated to the few people waiting, that there was a delay in the start time. We only overheard them talking among themselves that they were waiting for the councillor.
At 18.15 I got up and walked out, as there was no sign of the meeting commencing, and by that time all the city representatives were hanging around outside the venue, but there was no sign of the councillor.
By arriving at least 15 minutes late, the councillor has displayed a lack of respect for the people who pay the wages of everyone who works at the City of Windhoek, namely the ratepayers.
Being a public meeting, I would expect it to be run in a very professional manner, with the city representatives arriving in good time to make sure that everything was in order and to be ready to commence the meeting at 18h00 sharp.
To keep the residents waiting in this manner is a very sad sign indeed of their attitude to the people they are supposed to be serving; or is it because they feel they have nothing important to share with the residents? In that case, why go to the expense of arranging these meetings? The very least that should have happened is that the audience was informed of the delay, an apology issued, and some indication given of when the meeting was likely to commence.
These meetings cannot be cheap to organise and run, with the cost of the advertisements, the cost of hiring a venue, and overtime for the staff, and again these costs are born by the ratepayers.
So City of Windhoek, please do not bemoan the fact that you organise public meetings and no-one shows up. We were there, but you weren’t!
An irate resident
Windhoek