Mbatjiua Ngavirue
Strange things happen in the Omaheke Region – as someone trying to obtain information about the Resettlement Programme in the region will soon discover.
In a telephonic inquiry, Chief Regional Officer, Balbina Pienaar, claims she does not have a list of members of the Regional Settlement Committee.
Pienaar refers the reporter to Governor McLeod, saying that as the Chairperson of the Settlement Committee, she will be the best person to give that information.
The next day, the newspaper reporter enters the waiting room of Governor Laura McLeod’s office where a number of people are waiting to see the Governor, including Chief of the San people Sophia Garises.
Silently and mysteriously, the waiting room empties. The reporter and an associate suddenly find themselves alone in the room.
Soon after, they are told the Governor’s workload is too heavy to allow her to see anyone that afternoon.
It appears one of the Governor’s top officials, Punderius Tjihoreko – probably alerted about the reporter’s presence – had something to do with the sudden disappearance of everyone from the waiting room.
The New Era reporter requests the Governor’s secretary to ask the Honourable for a list of the members of the Regional Resettlement Committee.
The secretary returns from the Governor’s office to regretfully report that the Governor has suffered a sudden attack of amnesia, and can no longer remember the members of her own committee.
Head of the Ministry of Lands in Omaheke, Erastus Nghishoono, says his superiors in Windhoek instructed him “not to accommodate” the reporter regarding the list of members of the Settlement Committee.
With Chief Constance Kgosimang, who is also a member of the Settlement Committee, it is not clear whether it is reticence, or whether he is another victim of amnesia but he also declines to name members of the committee.
By this time, the reporter has the distinct sense of having entered an Alice in Wonderland fantasy realm where nothing seems to make sense and all logic has been turned upside down.
The only conclusion the reporter can arrive at, is that the membership of the Omaheke Regional Settlement Committee is a “state secret”. This also is the first region where the reporter has spoken to a Namibian Police Station commander who refuses to disclose his name – his name apparently also being a “state secret”.
The reporter is by this time almost ready to give up. By the look of things, there is more likelihood of finding open, transparent and talkative people in the corridors of the Namibia Central Intelligence Service back in Windhoek than in Omaheke.
The question that arises is this. Politicians and government officials in the Omaheke Region may very well have done nothing wrong, but then why do they behave as though they are guilty of something?
Why are they all shifty-eyed, evasive, mendacious and uncooperative?
Local sources however, suggest the amnesia suffered by Governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua and her team is maybe not surprising in the circumstances.