By Surihe Gaomas
WINDHOEK
The Namibian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD) has expressed grave concern over the number of Zimbabweans purporting to be hearing impaired who go around begging for money from members of the public under NNAD’s name.
At a press briefing on Monday, the Executive Director of NNAD, Martin Tjivera, said lately, the association has been inundated with phone calls over the issue.
“They go to different shops and offices begging for fund-raising, but then people call complaining to us here at the NNAD offices about this. We therefore call on the business community and the entire people in Namibia to stop giving donations to deaf Zimbabweans who always fool the business community by pretending to collect donations from the business community in the name of NNAD,” explained Tjivera.
Two Zimbabweans were caught red-handed making a false stamp of NNAD on its donation papers, which they allegedly used to collect money for themselves, he said.
“These deaf people are not working for the NNAD and we have never sent them to collect donations on behalf of the NNAD. They use the donations for their own private use and have never given a single cent to the NNAD,” he said.
Tjivera added that the two deaf Zimbabweans who were caught were found guilty by the court and deported, only to return under a new permit to do the same thing.
NNAD members say these actions give the general public a bad image about deaf Namibians in general and should be stopped.
“We also call on Namibian Police to arrest them and deport them. Those Zimbabwean deaf people are corrupt elements and always collecting donations through dirty tricks. We do not want them,” said Tjivera.
NNAD also claims that the Association for Children with Language and Speech and Hearing Impairments in Namibia (CLaSH) under its director, Heide Beinhauer, is exploiting deaf Namibians.
NNAD alleges that although the CLaSH director was consulted several times on this issue, she continues “exploiting deaf people for her self-enrichment.”
“It was unfair and unjust for CLaSH director, Heide Beinhauer, to invite deaf people to a sign language training workshop without refunding their transport costs in full,” said Tjavera.
Regulations state that all deaf people should be given return fares for attending such a workshop and in this case this did not happen.
“The CLaSH director thinks that we Namibian deaf people are brainless…We, the majority of the Namibian deaf people, know that CLaSH is always fund-raising in the name of the Namibian deaf people for self-enrichment purposes and pay themselves fat cheques, but all the money that CLaSH raised in the name of the deaf Namibians is not used to benefit the Namibian deaf children,” added Tjavera.
NNAD urged the Government, business community and foreign donors to stop giving financial assistance to organisations and individuals that might have what he termed “hidden agendas”.
Meanwhile, Beinhauer informed New Era that all the information provided by NNAD is “incorrect and baseless”.
She said CLaSH is a donor dependent organisation and has no hidden agenda and that its financial books are open for inspection.
“For the workshop in August, we stated clearly in the invitation letter that no transport costs would be refunded. That was stated in writing. It was a well-attended workshop here in Windhoek,” explained Beinhauer.
However, after several complaints from NNAD members, CLaSH board members and its director decided to make a full refund for all transport costs.