RDP slams street- naming ‘manipulation’

THE Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) has blasted what it terms certain people manipulating the Windhoek City Council in renaming streets.

The party called for the City’s Streets and Place Renaming Committee to have clear criteria on renaming streets to honour individuals.
RDP information and publicity secretary Jeremia Nambinga said it was ‘disgraceful and deplorable’ for the committee to allow itself to be politically manipulated by certain people because of their positions either in the ruling Swapo Party and/or Government, not to mention members of the diplomatic corps.
Nambinga was reacting to media reports last week that Windhoek Mayor Matheus Shikongo was tasked by the City Council’s management committee to mediate in a street-naming tug of war between Swapo Secretary General and Justice Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana and Zambian High Commissioner Mavis Muyunda. The street in question is Gloudina Street in one of Windhoek’s upmarket suburbs, Ludwigsdorf.
Iivula-Ithana wants the street to be renamed after her late husband, Joseph Mukwayu Ithana, because of his liberation struggle credentials and because he was living there at the time of his death in May 2008.
Muyunda wants the same street renamed after Dr Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia.
The City has already honoured Kaunda by renaming a street in Katutura after him, but the High Commissioner feels that it is not good enough.
‘What would happen to ordinary heroes and heroines who have no family members at strategically positions in the ruling party or government,’ asked Nambinga.
He said if streets had to be renamed in honour of certain people at the demand of their family members who are in Government or Swapo senior positions, or worse still members of the diplomatic corps, many heroes and heroines would be forgotten.
He said this explained ‘why many of our heroes and heroines especially former commanders of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) are not honoured in the renaming of the streets in this country.’
He added that although his party appreciated the contributions made to Namibia’s liberation struggle by members of the international community, it rejected the interference of certain diplomatic missions which tried to dictate to the Namibian Government on the issue on street names.
He said this bordered on insulting the intelligence of the Namibian people.
‘We are calling on the City’s Streets and Place Naming Committee … not to succumb to political manipulation,’ he said.