Okongo people protest land sale

PEOPLE at Okongo settlement, 100 kilometres east of Eenhana in the Ohangwena Region, are complaining about a sale of land to a Chinese company, saying legal procedures were not followed.

A cellphone text message has been doing the rounds since last Monday, alleging that two high-ranking officials of the Ohangwena Regional Council, a Police officer at Okongo and a senior Swapo official had pocketed about N$1,5 million from the sale.Residents told The Namibian that their regional councillor, Paulus Mwahanyekange, and a Chinese businessman arrived at Okongo last week and told the two families living on the land to vacate the land immediately because it belongs to Government and will be developed as soon as possible.The Chinese investor allegedly said he wanted to start with the construction this week. Reliable sources at Okongo told The Namibian that the Chinese businessman had bought the land for N$1,5 million, but instead of being used to compensate the people living there, the money was pocketed by some individuals in the Ohangwena Regional Council. When approached for comment, Chinese businessman Michael Chan confirmed that he had bought the land but when asked about the purchase price, he referred The Namibian to the Okongo regional authority.Mwahanyekange, who is the chairman of the Ohangwena Regional Council, denied that the council had sold the land to the Chinese businessman. He told The Namibian that the council gave the land to him free of charge to develop it into a mall which will house banks and shops. He described the claim about the N$1,5 million as ‘nonsense’ cooked up by people who are jealous of him because he beat them in last year’s regional election.’That land is government land and was given to the Chinese businessman free of charge. No payment was made whatsoever,’ Mwahanyekange said. In the meantime, Abraham Ndumbu, former president of the Namibian National Students’ Organisation (Nanso), claims that Nanso had bought the land from the Okongo Traditional Authority in the early 1990s to use for youth development projects.Ndumbu said the current deputy mayor of Oshakati, Katrina Shimbulu, who at the time was a member of Nanso, was instructed by the movement to take care of the land. According to Ndumbu, many people in Okongo know that the land belongs to Nanso and the Regional Council has no right to take it over.’We are going to Okongo this Monday [yesterday] to see what is going on there and we will stop that Chinese man from going ahead with the development of that land because it is not his, it’s ours,’ Ndumbu said.A member of the Okongo Settlement Committee, who did not want his name published, told The Namibian that the alleged land sale did not appear legal, since the prescribed compensation procedure was not followed.’There is a government policy to be followed in these kinds of things, and I do not know whether these procedures were followed by the Ohangwena Regional Council at all.’ he said. The human rights organisation Namrights is calling on the Ministry of Regional and Local Government to investigate the allegations as soon as possible.