Demo, red carpet for Hanse at court

CLOSE to 50 people demonstrated in support of corruption-accused Hardap Governor Katrina Hanse-Himarwa at the Mariental Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

Hanse-Himarwa appeared in the dock yesterday on corruption charges related to Hardap Regional Council money she is alleged to have wrongfully appropriated. Brandishing placards, the demonstrators marched through the streets of Mariental, denouncing Hanse-Himarwa’s corruption charges as a plot to end her political career. Some of the placards read: ‘We want to know when ACC Director Paulus Noa and his deputy will be arrested for having pocketed double salaries’ and ‘Agents like Jan Poolman, eat the humble pie on the day of judgement. We want Swapo Party hibernators to stay away from Mutti Hanse-Himarwa’. Most of the demonstrators were decked out in Swapo Party colours. Leading the protesters was Hanse-Himarwa’s Personal Assistant, Stephanus Ovamba, who described her arrest and charging, as well as the silence of Hardap Swapo Party regional leadership, as a ‘cold war’ against his boss. On Wednesday evening, a braai was organised at the town by Hanse-Himarwa’s husband, which by accounts drew a much larger crowd and where free booze flowed.Ovambo said he was happy with yesterday’s turnout, although many more were kept away by the wintery weather and a lack of transport, according to him. RED CARPETTREATMENTUpon her arrival at the court in a luxury white Mercedes Benz driven by her husband, Hanse-Himarwa was greeted by a red carpet rolled out by the demonstrators, on which she entered the court building.Addressing her supporters before entering the court, Hanse-Himarwa said her enemies chose the route of an arrest to ‘harass and embarrass’ her.’They thought I would walk face down,’ she said. ‘Let justice prevail,’ she said to applause from the small crowd. The charges against the Governor relate to N$2 000 she allegedly appropriated from the Hardap Regional Council entertainment budget under false pretenses in December 2005, illegally soliciting N$3 290 for the sewing of curtains for her official residence, and the inflation and wrongful allocation of a curtain supply tender to a relative, Lydia Goeieman.Hanse-Himarwa’s corruption case was postponed to September 7 and 8 for plea and trial and she remains out on bail of N$2 000.Speaking after her court appearance yesterday, she said her ‘enemies’ had succeeded in their ‘mission of orchestrating my arrest to destroy my character’. ‘But after my arrest I did not want to end up in offices, but behind bars. They who had arrested me robbed me of a golden opportunity to have experienced the life behind bars,’ Hanse-Himarwa said. ‘The road to justice starts with an arrest,’ she said. ‘No one will destroy me, only God can.’luqman@namibian.com.na