SOME Okahandja residents are calling for the dissolution of the town council because of corruption.
About 100 residents gathered at the town council offices yesterday to express their disappointment with councillors.
The picketing follows revelations about the town council selling large portions of undeveloped land from 2012 to 2015 to companies owned by politicians and well-connected individuals who later sold the land for inflated prices.
The residents said they were not happy with the manner in which councillors have been managing council affairs over past years, especially when it came to selling land. Okahandja has been plagued by allegations of corruption for years, which led the urban development ministry to ban the sale of undeveloped land since 2015.
The current leadership at the town – under Johannes Hindjou as mayor – has also been accused of taking bribes from business people to push land deals.
The Namibian reported last year about councillors allegedly taking bribes from property developer Petrus Shambo to favour his application for certain plots.
Shambo said Okahandja councillors, including mayor Hindjou, councillors Helminth Maruru and Frederick Shimanda approached him about the land he applied for “to motivate the application”.
Although the councillors denied taking bribes or selling land illegally, Shambo had at the time told The Namibian that he had paid N$100 000 to Maruru as a so-called “commitment fee” to the town council to have his application for land worth N$1,4 million approved.
There is also a telephonic conversation between Shambo and Maruru in which she [Maruru] confirmed receiving money and promised to pay back “if a deal had not gone through”.
Although these allegations have been reported to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) last year, The Namibian understands there is little progress in the case.
Kathleen Uri-Khos who represented yesterday’s protesters said they were “fed up” with the town council and want the urban and rural development ministry to dissolve the council with immediate effect, “so that we clean up this issue”.
“The town council of Okahandja is corrupt. They are stealing from us. We don’t have any faith and trust in them. They must go. If they refuse to go we will force them out of the offices,” she said. Another community member, who spoke to The Namibian, said corruption around land allocations was not new at the town.
Wilfred Goaseb, who contested in the local authority elections in 2015, said he has submitted evidence to the urban and rural development ministry in the past, but nothing was done to councillors facing allegations.
“The ministers were the ones entertaining these things because there were a lot of complaints submitted to their offices, but they did nothing,” he said, adding that previous councillors became “rich through such processes”.
The urban and rural development ministry has investigated allegations of corruption at the town in the past, but little was uncovered in that investigation.
However, most of the controversial land sales at the town were never revealed by the investigation called by former minister Sophia Shaningwa.
