WINDHOEK- Kai-||Khaun Traditional Authority Chief Simon Petrus Kooper has called for the chairmanship of the Council of Traditional Leaders to be rotated over a period of five years.
Kooper made this request yesterday on the sidelines of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Council of Traditional Leaders, underway in Windhoek.
The primary function of the Council of Traditional Leaders (CTL)
is to advise the head of state on communal land issues, customs and traditions.
Ondonga King Immanuel Kauluma has been the chairperson of the Council of Traditional Leaders since its inception in 1997, while the current deputy chairperson Chief Immanuel /Gaseb filled the vacancy left by the death of Chief Munyuku II Nguvauva in 2008.
According to the Council of Traditional Leaders Act (1997), the chairperson and vice-chairperson of the council shall hold office until he or she ceases to be a member of the council; or resigns or is removed from office by resolution of the council. But Kooper says they made proposals in the past for the provision in the act to be changed so that the chairmanship can only last for a certain period.
“This thing of waiting up until the chairman or his deputy has died is not good for democracy – right now our chairman has been sick for a very long time and all these years it is only the deputy chairman who has been acting. This needs to change. Maybe the position can be rotated over a period of five year – there is need for the act to be amended to avoid the situation we find ourselves in,” he said.
For the past three years due to ill-health Kauluma has been absent from the Annual Meeting of the Council of Traditional Leaders