RESIDENTS of the Noordoewer settlement in the //Kharas region demonstrated last Thursday to protest poor service delivery.
They handed over a petition to the settlement’s control officer, Alfred Muhonga, to forward it to the //Kharas regional council’s chief regional officer, Beatus Kasete.
The residents accused Muhonga and senior administrator Katrina Cloete of not serving the community, but their own interests.
They called for the immediate removal of the two officials to pave the way for a full-scale investigation into a host of alleged irregularities.
The petition claims that the duo misuse a public office for personal gain as they carry out some private chores during working hours.
Equally, they accused the officials of favouritism, nepotism, by allocating plots and low-cost houses built under the Build Together Programme (BTP) to relatives and friends.
The protesters also lamented what they termed “non-existing” empowerment projects and the uncollected rubbish that is piling up in the streets.
Some of the protesters said they now “dig holes around their shacks to relieve themselves”.
“Noordoewer is a stinking urinary bomb, and the odour is unbearable,” the petition states. The residents also appealed to the settlement office to fence off the local dumping site and cemetery.
“Noordoewer is a border settlement and the eye and image of Namibia. But it is filthy, with never-ending overflowing sewage,” the petition reads.
The protesters suggested that unemployed local youth should be contracted to frequently clean up the area as a way to reduce the unemployment rate at the settlement.
Similarly, they also demanded that agriculture plots be allocated to locals to become self-employed in crop production.
The residents gave the settlement office 14 days to respond to their grievances, or face unspecified action.
Muhonga dismissed as rubbish the allegations of abusing their office, nepotism and favouritism levelled against him. He said they are “blue lies” and “politics at play”.
He stated that people with political ambitions are instigating locals to protest over non-existing service delivery concerns, adding that “these people whose mental faculties are not intact are even dividing the community along tribal lines”.
“These dirty political tricks some people play boggle my mind,” he noted.
Cloete also denied any wrongdoing.
“All allocations of plots and erven are above board,” she insisted.
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