By Obrein Simasiku
WINDHOEK – The suspended Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) secretary for information, publicity and mobilisation Job Amupanda on Sunday issued a media statement saying he will in his quest for social justice stage a mass fishing quota application. He plans to target a minimum of 15 000 applications when the existing fishing quotas – which he says are for the elite – lapse.
Amupanda sent shockwaves through the nation when he and two other land activists cleared a piece of land in the affluent suburb of Kleine Kuppe on the grounds the trio’s applications for residential land were frustrated by inept and corrupt officials at the Windhoek Municipality.
He said the applications would be made through the ‘Affirmative Repositioning’ movement, under which the land protest was also made.
“Affirmative Repositioning is about standing up for 60 percent of the population and shielding them from the capitalist greed and economic rape. It is not about elections or political parties but about land, we are not shaken by lies and propaganda,” said the outspoken Amupanda whose ‘Affirmative Repositioning’ saw the City of Windhoek being swamped with 14 059 applications mainly from youth without land.
“We wish to make it known that we intend to root out corruption, nepotism and elitism in the fishing sector and will request the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources to issue a written requirement, which will then be distributed to young people of Namibia, in ghettos and over the social media,” he stated yesterday.
He added the youth would be mobilised to participate in the mass applications for fishing rights, with a minimum target of 15 000 applications from the youth “who must also benefit from the resources of their country apparently being reaped only by a few politically connected elite”.
With Amupanda in the Kleine Kuppe land grab were George Kambala and Dimbulukeni Nauyoma who were also suspended from the SPYL.
But their subsequent action through ‘Affirmative Repositioning’ saw more than 20 000 applications for land lodged with the City of Windhoek following allegations of dubious land allocation by the city council to people that are well connected.
Amupanda stressed that all the corrupt elite must surely register and come to the table to discuss how all Namibians will benefit from the existing resources, because if not “there will be sand in their food. The youth can no longer eat bones in their country while even the elite’s dogs eat better.”
He said that the powerful, detractors and sellouts are traumatized and unable to respond to the posture of ‘Affirmative Repositioning’ thus seeking shelter in conspiracy theories in trying to explain away the movement.
“Their conspiracy theories are asserting that there is a third force behind the land activities and that we are working with imperialists,” he noted, adding: “Those theories are just figments of the imagination of those that are betrayed by their cognitive abilities of their cerebrum, practitioners of zigzagging politics and those that are seeking to maintain their status quo from which only they benefit handsomely.”