Urban and Rural Development minister Erastus Uutoni has subliminally threatened to dissolve the Windhoek municipal council, should it fail to get its house in order.
Currently, the municipality is without a fully-constituted management committee (MC) and substantive CEO, two key components for the functionality of any local authority.
Last week, Uutoni summoned the councillors to his office.
He read them the riot act.
“During our engagement, the councillors admitted that they failed to fully constitute and operationalise the management committee that deals with the day-to-day activities of the council,” Uutoni said on Friday.
He was addressing the media on the outcome of his meeting.
The importance of a fully-constituted MC, the minister stated, cannot be over-emphasised.
Pointing to the Local Authorities Act, he said the MC is among others tasked to “
control the expenditure of
monies voted by the local authority council in its approved estimates and additional estimates, and all other monies or funds made available to the local authority council.”
While the minister was diplomatic in his approach, a councillor who attended the marathon meeting confirmed that Uutoni could be running out of patience.
The Local Authorities Act empowers the minister to dissolve a council, should it be deemed dysfunctional.
There is a clear indication in that direction, a City source said.
“The minister simply gave us a yellow card. He listened to our side of the story. He told us that he knows the bad state of affairs at the city, and that he is monitoring it closely. All I am saying is, if council is dissolved, we will have ourselves to blame because we simply can’t agree on small issues. Some of these councillors, as young as they are, are about eating and positions. It is
sad,” the councillor lamented.
G5
Post the meetings, councillors under the banner ‘Windhoek G5’ issued a statement detailing their takeaways.
Windhoek G5 is a coalition between the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement, Landless People’s Movement (LPM) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) at the City of Windhoek. The councillors said they briefed the minister on the walkouts and the lack of quorum that have hindered the election of a full five-member management committee of the City.
Last year in December, the council was set to elect office-bearers for mayor, deputy mayor and management committee positions at its chambers after a failed earlier attempt. Elections could not take place after both Swapo and Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) councillors opted to not participate in the elections, which resulted in the council postponing the meeting until further notice
due to a lack of quorum.
“We have explained and provided a briefing to the minister on matters of law as provided for in the Local Authorities Act, and the political developments such as the lack of quorum created by those who walked out during the election session of 1 December 2022 and the subsequent meetings of 19 and 26 January 2023,” said the councillors.
They particularly informed Uutoni about the operations of the council and the legal position that council can discharge its powers and duties, despite the two vacant positions in the management committee.
“We informed the minister that although undesirable, the state of Windhoek is not a new phenomenon – remembering that local authorities such as Oranjemund, Ongwediva, Grootfontein and Gobabis were in a similar situation and prevailed,” they observed.
The council is expected to have another meeting on 9 February, hoping to resolve the ongoing impasse. Uutoni will be following with keen interest that council meeting, scheduled to fill the two MC vacancies.
The minister has, in the meantime, given the councillors a month to resolve the issue.
-Additional reporting by Nampa.