Swapo probes Angula

SWAPO has decided to appoint a team to investigate claims that a senior Cabinet minister allegedly called others ‘tribalised’ and claimed that a third force is behind the Swapo Party Youth League.

S o u r c e s t o l d T h e Namibian that this past weekend’s Politburo meeting decided to appoint veteran former minister Ben Amathila to investigate allegations by Swapo regional co-ordinator Armas Amukwiyu that Works Minister Helmut Angula called some people tribalists while touring certain areas inthe North to explain the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). ‘Initially Armas presented a verbal report to the Central Committee but was requested to submit a written one. The Politburo was presented with the written one,’ said onesource. The source said Angula denied the claims about tribalism and producedanother opinion piece which Amukwiyu wrote during the MCA debacle and which he said was unacceptable. ‘The President (Hifikepunye Pohamba) said that one should also be added to the investigation,’ said one source. The Namibian understandsthat Amukwiyu was alerted by a Swapo member who attended Angula’s MCA meeting about the alleged statements, when he returned from Cuba last year.The member apparently told Amukiwu that the Works Minister had attacked the Swapo Party Youth League and the party’s Think Tank and had claimed that a third force was behind the youth leaders’ calls for the removal of some ministers. According to sources, Amukwiyu told party leaders that Angula allegedly told the gathering that the Think Tank was just a tribal platform initiated by Swapo Secretary General Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana to attack Pohamba andothers. ‘It was all denied by Minister Angula. He [allegedly] said some stupid people in SPYL were just out to get him and Pohamba,’ one sourcealleged. Angula is said to have had a copy of an article which Amukwiyu publishedin The Namibian and President Pohamba had a closer look at it before he gave instructions that the article should also be investigated by Amathila’s team. Amukwiyu wrote an opinion piece last year in which he endorsed Swapo Vice President Hage Geingob and called on others to support his candidacy as the move in some quarters to oust Pohamba intensified. The Namibian reported in November that some sections in the party had actively started campaigning to block Pohamba as the party’s presidential candidate for the November elections. Swapo rejected the report and pledged their support to the President.