Former Gobabis mayor Liberius Kalili has denied claims by current mayor Elvire Theron that “corruption” in the eastern town of Gobabis has stalled the town’s 1995 twinning agreement with the Smallingerland municipality in the Dutch province of Friesland.
Kalili, setting the “record straight”, said, in fact, the twinning agreement between these two municipalities was reviewed in 2020, and new areas of cooperation were identified going forward.
“Theron showed she is ill-informed by events that unfolded in regard to the twinning between Gobabis and Smallingerland – and again feed the public with lies. I challenge Theron to come up with an example of just one corruption incident that stalled the twinning agreement,” Kalili said.
Theron told New Era recently that the council was busy restoring the twinning agreement the municipality had with the Netherlands council.
She said Smallingerland had withdrawn, as there were a lot of corrupt activities happening, but the council she led is actively busy mending the relationship.
“This is a very important relationship for us, as a town, as the Netherlands has done a lot of investments and was part of community development projects in previous years,” Theron said at the time.
Responding to Kalili, Theron yesterday said she does not know what Kalili is talking about, as there was no agreement in place when she took over the council.
“When we came in, there was literally nothing in place; we engaged Smallingerland officials from the beginning. There was a clear indication that they were not happy with how things were done in the past,” Theron said.