Do away with governors, regional councillors – Itula

The leader of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Panduleni Itula, says the party will do away with regional governors and councillors and replace them with traditional leaders if it wins the 2024 general election.

This, he says, will leave governance to non-partisan individuals, who are closest to the people, and who will ensure that resources and development trickle down to where it is most needed.

Speaking at a press conference last week, Itula responded to a question on whether the implementation of decentralisation could remedy the apparent lack of development in the regions.

“The nearest person to our people is the headman. If we are to create a system whereby we bring the traditional leaders closer to the central government and even give them budgets, we would be able to solve many of the social problems bedeviling our people at the moment,” he said. “We will get rid of the governors who are just wasting money, and regional councillors who tend to be partisan in their distribution of drought relief food and other social offerings.

“Traditional leaders, by their appointment, care for everyone – irrespective of political affiliation,” he said.

Itula said Namibia made a mistake at independence with the adoption of a “western constructed skeleton of a constitution” which has cast away traditional ways of leadership that made kingdoms thrive.

“Well before independence and colonialism set its foot on Namibian soil we had various kingdoms and various people living together quite harmoniously, being managed by our traditional leaders.

“We should have done the same, but we pushed away our traditional leaders and lifestyles and adopted a western-cooked constitution from the five-quarter group of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States,” he said.

“In the Kavango, for example, the person known as foromana (traditional leader) is the nearest to the people, and the foromanas know how many blind, orphaned, disabled and people of pension age are in their area or jurisdiction,” he said.

Itula said his party has already embarked on the preparatory work for this plan.

“The mechanism of how it would operate is being worked out. At this stage we have almost approached every traditional leader in this country with the proposal,” he said.

He said if his party takes over the government, the way in which government policies are introduced and rolled out would come from the people “rather than the top-to-bottom sort of approach the government has been implementing”.

“Without proper assessment the councillors are not accountable to the people who elected them at all. Nor are parliamentarians, because the masses elect parties and do not have direct relationships with lawmakers,” Itula said.

‘DECENTRALISATION FAILED’

Itula said decentralisation, as it was proposed by the Swapo government, has completely failed.

“What we are proposing is to ensure that we bring the people who are traditionally close to the masses into the second house, the National Council, where they can scrutinise the bills made by the parliament – obviously with the necessary precautions,” he said.

The leader of the Rally for Democracy and Progress, Mike Kavekotora, last week said many developmental flops at regional level in Namibia are as a result of the country’s failed decentralisation plan. He said the completion of the government’s abandoned decentralisation process could be a solution as powers would be given to the regions to call out tenders, implement their own budgets and accelerate the developmental process, which is not the case.

“Decentralisation would make the implementation of the developmental process less cumbersome, but we are here because of the arrogance of the central government, claiming Namibia is a unitary state,” Kavekotora said.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.