Demolitions draw political flak

THE Windhoek Municipality’s destruction earlier this week of a number of illegal shacks in the Otjomuise Agste Laan informal settlement has prompted condemnation from opposition parties.

Both the Congress of Democrats (CoD) and the Namibian Democratic Movement for Change (Namibia DMC) this week likened the City of Windhoek’s actions to pre-Independence forced removals.On Tuesday, police were forced to fire warning shots after a group of community members protested heavily against the removal of some of the shacks in their area.Among the people whose homes were destroyed was a single mother with a week-old baby daughter.’While we are in total agreement with the municipality stated by-laws that regulate residents’ locations, we however decry and reject the municipality’s inhumane actions, taken during this winter period to remove those residents,’ Namibia DMC spokesperson Joseph Kauandenge said in a statement issued on Tuesday. He criticised the municipality’s decision to spend about N$1,4 million in its current proposed budget on entertainment, ‘while in the same breath they forcefully remove residents from so-called undeclared areas, just because they (municipality) failed to provide basic services to those areas,’ Kauandenge said.CoD spokesperson Natjirikasorua Tjirera likewise called on the municipality to reverse its decision to have the residents moved from the area.’The City has no urgent need to use the area inhabited by the people and should allow the people to stay on until they get alternative accommodation,’ the CoD said.Taking their protest a step further, the DTA yesterday delivered corrugated iron sheets and wooden planks to the evicted group, encouraging them to rebuild their torn down shacks.City Police officers who arrived at the scene to witness the event, did not react but took photographs of the event for investigation of the matter.