By Kuvee Kangueehi
WINDHOEK
The forensic audit on the extraordinary congress of the Congress of Democrats (CoD) is expected to be completed on Monday next week, the chairperson of the audit panel, Clement Daniels, said yesterday.
In a letter last Tuesday to the two factions within the CoD, Daniels said that there had been a delay in the audit process because of the workload but he expected the panel to complete the audit by July 30.
According to the terms of reference that were signed by both parties, the audit was supposed to be completed on July 16. The audit panel is to establish whether or not there were any irregularities during the elections at the party’s extraordinary congress at Keetmanshoop in May this year.
A faction within the CoD, which is led by its former vice-president Nora Schimming-Chase, claims that the election, which re-elected Ben Ulenga as the president of the party, was rigged as some party members who attended the congress as observers became delegates and voted.
They claimed that after the walkout by some of the delegates, the congress had no quorum and thus could not elect the rest of the executive.
The audit panel consists of the coordinator of the Forum for Future (FFF) Samson Ndekwela, Toni Hancox, a lawyer at the Legal Assistance Centre and Ian Swartz from the Rainbow Project.
Meanwhile, the feud between the two factions to control the party is still ongoing. There are reports of a cheque of about N$300 000 whose whereabouts are unknown. The party is believed to be facing some cash-flow problems.
The cheque is part of government grant to political parties in parliament.