Swapo accused of politicking at Walvis Bay community meeting

Swapo secretary general Sophia Shaningwa has been receiving backlash for allegedly politicising a community meeting at Walvis Bay meant to address municipal service delivery.

Shaningwa was invited to Walvis Bay by the Joint Walvis Bay Residents Association (JWBRA) on Saturday to accept a petition expressing residents’ unhappiness with service delivery at the town.

This includes the ongoing failure to provide basic services, manage waste and uphold accountability.

The association says it invited Shaningwa to the meeting as a national leader along with the deputy minister of urban and rural development Evelyn Nawases-Taeyele.

However, the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), which currently runs the municipality, says Shaningwa used the platform to promote Swapo, saying she had no business being at a meeting meant to address municipal concerns.

Following the meeting, the secretary general on social media posted: “Swapo Party is ready to restore Walvis Bay to its former glory, come November 2025.”

Shaningwa said she was invited to engage the “white” community of Meersig at the Lagoon.

“The long overdue engagement is prompted by the deteriorating service delivery by the IPC-led municipality of Walvis Bay that has seen the unfortunate collapse of the once-booming Walvis Bay Municipality since 2020 – a crucial economic hub for our country,” she said.

‘DISGUSTING PLOY’

Sharon Roodt, a member of the JWBRA, says Shaningwa’s social media post is a “disgusting political ploy”.

“After we took her around to show her the bad situation, how can she now go and post such things? I am so disgusted.

All we wanted was someone to come and hear us out and help us, regardless which party they are from. Not to be used as a political ploy.

“We are a community association. Now our community will think we are captured, and this is not the case,” she says.

Roodt says Shaningwa was out of line as her post had created the impression that the event was a political meeting.
Shaningwa’s phone was off when contacted for comment yesterday.

!Nawases-Taeyele, who also attended the meeting, did not respond to calls or texts on the matter.

Group representative Kobus van Shalkwyk in the petition claimed that the town has become hazardous to live in.

“Every day as I drive out of Walvis Bay, I witness the heartbreaking sight of grown men and women resorting to relieving themselves by the roadside.

This daily occurrence is not just an affront to human dignity, but also a stark reminder of the systematic neglect by the Walvis Bay Municipality in providing the most basic of human necessities,” he says.

IPC HITS BACK

In a statement issued on Saturday, IPC spokesperson Imms Nashinge condemns Shaningwa, labelling Swapo as a “dictatorial clandestine power trying to grab Walvis Bay”.

Nashinge describes the meeting as a sham.
It was nothing but “a dictatorial maneuver by Swapo to fabricate dissent and justify an illegal takeover of Walvis Bay municipality”, he says.

Swapo lost the local authority to the IPC in 2020.

“Shaningwa is clearly undermining honourable James Sankwasa’s authority and that of the appointing authority. If the people of Walvis Bay had legitimate concerns, Shaningwa has no authority to be presented with such concerns. There is no law that authorises coercion of citizens by a political party,” he says.

Nashinge says if Swapo continues its “evil bullying tactics”, his party would mobilise nationwide demonstrations to defend local governance and democratic rights.

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