Regional Councillors angry about salaries

A STORM is brewing over the 24 per cent salary increase for public office bearers, including ministers, deputy ministers, Members of Parliament and the Auditor General.

Regional councillors want to know why they were not included.’It is weird that my colleagues serving in the National Council plus the Governors are entitled to the salary increase,’ said Okakarara Constituency Councillor Kandorozu Vetaruhe. ‘To make things worse we’re the most underpaid political office bearers,’ he remarked. ‘All of us are feeling the pinch of the high inflation rate, why are we then treated differently from others?’ Vetaruhe represents Nudo in the Otjozondjupa Regional Council. Another regional councillor in the South, who did not want to be named, also expressed discontent over being excluded from the salary increase. ‘The process to mobilise and organise … councillors in order to protest against the exclusion will soon kick off,’ he said. Neither Prime Minister Nahas Angula nor Presidential Affairs Minister, Albert Kawana, could give clear-cut reasons why regional councillors were excluded when approached by The Namibian yesterday. Angula referred The Namibian to Kawana. Kawana said the matter is receiving attention.He advised The Namibian to get hold of the Public Office Bearers Remuneration and Commission report. The commission’s chairperson, Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe, also referred The Namibian to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment.The Chief Administrative Officer of the Association for Regional Councils, Kakune Kandjavera, yesterday said a letter of complaint was forwarded to Judge Mtambanengwe in which the association sought clarity on why ordinary regional councillors were disqualified from the salary increase. ‘The Judge only acknowledged receipt of the letter, but to date we’re still waiting for answers,’ he said.