Beware the Sankwasa Hypocrisy

JAMES SANKWASA has taken Namibia by storm in his job as minister of urban and rural development.

Many loved his stormy style as he travelled the country, firing town councillors.

It is easy to understand why many Namibians like his approach: People are tired of timid, thieving politicians and other public officials who tend to get away with the misuse of common resources.

Sankwasa should be commended for advocating the prudent use of public resources and insisting that elected town and regional councillors should reside within their constituencies to serve their voters effectively.

Yet the public must be wary of hypocrisy.

Sankwasa should not be allowed to get away with populist self-glorification while doing little to strengthen the institutions and processes of the very accountability he demands of others but seemingly does not want to live by.

His hypocrisy has become too glaring to ignore.

When he fired the Katima Mulilo Town Council for giving a businessman prime riverfront land in return for luxury cars and gifts, many seemed to cut him some slack for appointing a corruption convict to replace the town’s administrators.

Then he railed against debt-collection agency RedForce, which has become massively unpopular for using bullying tactics to make errant residents pay their municipal bills.

RedForce Debt Management co-owner Julius Nyamazana has at some point been accused of not paying his bills.

The public therefore saw RedForce as fair game.

Sankwasa then launched personal attacks on Selma Nangombe, the owner of RedForce, accusing her of being used as a “rent-a-wife” by her Zimbabwean husband and business partner.

RedForce’s owners subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit and claimed the minister attacked them because he is failing to pay his bills at Katima Mulilo.

By mid-January Sankwasa demanded that newly elected councillors disclose their accounts so he knows whether they are up to date on their municipal bills.

Applause was in order.

Barely a week thereafter, The Namibian journalist Tracy Tafirenyika wrote a story exposing that Sankwasa himself has been owing NamWater more than N$170 000 for about five years.

This debt is a strong and good example of what Sankwasa said councillors should not be allowed to get away with.

Instead of accepting his double standards, Sankwasa chose to attack the personality of our journalist and claimed his bills are a private matter.

Bullying, harassing and intimidating a journalist for doing her job in holding officials accountable to the public has just further shown that Sankwasa is not honest about holding public officials accountable.

Worse is the hypocrisy he has deployed, instead questioning the journalist’s citizenship, which is no secret and no crime.

Sankwasa and fellow politicians must understand that journalists play an important role in promoting good governance.

If he is genuine about improving service delivery, he should view journalists as his allies.

The public must be careful not to grant people like Sankwasa blanket uncritical support in the face of such blatant hypocrisy.

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