THE Minister of Lands and Resettlement, Alfeus !Naruseb, locked out his personal assistant Titus Huisemab on Monday, but declined to say whether he had fired or suspended him.
‘Huisemab knows what’s going on. Talk to him. He is the only one who knows what happened,’ !Naruseb said angrily when asked about Huisemab’s employment status. Accusing Huisemab of having tipped off the media about the lockout, !Naruseb said he regarded the lockout as an internal matter. An access code enabling Huisemab to enter the Ministry’s premises had also been cancelled, The Namibian has been informed. Huisemab yesterday confirmed the lockout, saying he had no clue why his boss had changed the locks to his office. ‘It was a slap in face,’ said Huisemab. He claimed the minister had ‘illegally seized and impounded his office,’ adding that he wrote a letter to !Naruseb demanding answers.According to a source privy to the goings-on, the lockout followed after Huisemab went on a week’s leave that the Minister had not approved. Apparently Huisemab frequently applies for leave to carry out party activities as Hardap SPYL Regional Secretary.An official in the Lands and Resettlement Ministry’s personnel department yesterday told The Namibian that Huisemab was still an employee of the Ministry. Meanwhile, infighting about the position of Hardap Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) Regional Secretary, currently held by Huisemab, continues unabated with divided youth wing factions publicly trading accusations with each other. In the latest development, a faction led by Mariental Urban Constituency SPYL District Secretary Jan Johannes Herero accused fellow youth wing national executive member Charles Siyauya of playing a ‘tribal card’. The Herero faction claimed Siyauya had been ‘illegally appointed in the boardroom’ by SPYL Secretary Elijah Ngurare.This followed after Siyauya declared a recent press conference as ‘illegal’ where the Herero faction demanded the removal of Huisemab, claiming his ‘visionless’ style of leadership had failed the youth in Hardap Region. Siyauya further countered ‘as baseless and devoid of any truth’ the Herero faction’s recent public claims that Huisemab, supported by his ‘godfathers’ Ngurare and SPYL Information and Mobilisation Officer Clinton Swartbooi, was holding onto power as SPYL Regional Secretary despite being employed as the Lands and Resettlement Minister’s personal assistant. According to the Herero faction, Huisemab is reluctant to relinquish his position as SPYL Regional Secretary because of greed. Siyauya charged that the bigger issue in Hardap Region was ‘about what some call an artificial and tribal division distinction between lighter Namas and darker Namas’.’Added to this is the politics of personal empire building in the region,’ said Siyauya.In a counter-statement issued on Wednesday and signed by Mariental Rural Constituency SPYL District Secretary Simon Dukuleni, the faction continued their tongue-lashing.’Your [Siyauya’s] sloppy defence in favour of Regional Secretary Titus Huisemab and labelling our press release conference as illegal manifest the crystal fact that you are a novice on the political landscape. ‘Even your defence of comrade Huisemab will not frighten or intimidate us and we will not be silenced by a comrade who was not elected and sworn in at the congress. ‘Your interference in our regional affairs will further inflame the tempers and you will also bear the consequences as your origheid [meddlesomeness] will lead to political anarchy and factional politics,’ the statement reads. luqman@namibian.com.na
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