SCORES of Berseba residents staged a peaceful protest last Wednesday to express dissatisfaction over a host of issues including poor service delivery, misuse of council assets and alleged unprocedural appointments.
In a petition handed over to the local village council, disgruntled residents accused councillors of running the council as a closed shop by not convening consultative meetings with them.
Claiming that council appoints staff without following proper procedures, the residents said staff are being appointed to positions such as village secretary without the advertisement of any vacancies.
The owner of Huitani Trading Enterprise, Elmalinda ‘Elrine’ Swartz, in February paid close to N$750 000 to the Berseba Village Council to help 120 pensioners settle their outstanding water bills.
However, according to the protesters, pensioners had received municipal bills reflecting that they still have arrears on their water bills.
“We demand clarity why the water bills of pensioners have not yet been written off,” the residents said, while demanding ‘remission’ on all municipal accounts of residents who had passed on.
The residents furthermore expressed frustration over their continued use of the bucket toilet system in a modern era, and demanded that they should be equipped with flush toilets.
Flush toilets have been built at the village.
However, residents said council has not connected them to the sewerage system almost a year after construction.
Residents also demanded that they be given preference when tenders are awarded, claiming outsiders to whom tenders are allocated deliver shoddy construction work due to a lack of monitoring by the council.
On top of delivering poor-quality work, residents accused outsiders of failing to pay their workers.
Residents also urged the village secretary to immediately stop allowing unlicensed and unauthorised drivers to drive council vehicles.
They likewise demanded the servicing of more erven at the village, while calling for more detailed information about the social housing programmes, council-owned flats and other existing capital projects.
“Please service plots for us to become landowners; do not just dig trenches which become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, posing a health risk to us,” the petition read in part.
The council deputy chairperson Salmon Dawid Isaaks, who recieved the petition on Wednesday declined to comment, saying they will respond at a later stage.
The protesters want answers on the petition within two weeks.
