THE Public Service Commission (PSC) says it’s not in a position to recommend a request by Local Government Permanent Secretary Erastus Negonga to appoint Leopold Niipare as the Chief Regional Officer (CRO) of Karas.
The PSC’s reluctance to recommend Niipare’s appointment is based on a host of irregularities regarding the request, The Namibian has established. The Namibian has it on good authority that Negonga failed to consulted the Karas Regional Council before submitting the appointment request, and in doing so violated a section of the Regional Councils Act, which states that a regional council shall ‘appoint, after consultation with the Minister’, a person as chief regional officer.The Namibian also understands that the vacant CRO position was advertised twice. However, there was no word in Negonga’s submission about what had happened to those candidates who had responded to the first advertisement on October 24 2008.The second advertisement was published on February 13 2009. The other short-listed candidates who had applied for the vacancy included Hardap Education Director Ben Boys, Maureen Hinda, Simon //Garoëb and the acting CRO, Saul Kahuika. luqman@namibian.com.na
