By Kuvee Kangueehi
Windhoek
The concerned group within the Congress of Democrats (CoD) has demanded that the audit to investigate matters regarding the extraordinary congress should start immediately and be concluded as soon as possible.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, Ignatius Shixwameni said his group is urging CoD President Ben Ulenga to speed up as a matter of immediate urgency the audit, and warned that they would not accept any deliberate delays.
The concerned group, which prefers to call themselves the CoD majority group, said Ulenga had failed to meet their demands made on May 8 despite giving him 14 working days to respond to their grievances. Shixwameni alleged that Ulenga’s group has taken actions which will have serious political, financial and administrative repercussions if they are not stopped, especially since it involves taxpayers’ monies and the image of the CoD.
“The non-formal response to our letter by Ulenga and the actions, which are continuing unabated, have forced us the CoD majority group to call a press conference to put the record straight.”
The group demanded that as soon as the audit gets underway the current office-bearers must get out of the head office whilst any impartial forensic audit is being done. The group threatened that if the current office-bearers do not get out of the office, they would mobilize party members to remove them forcefully.
“Our members are getting impatient and if they do not do this, we will call upon the majority members in the regions to come to Windhoek and evict them from office.” They demanded that the office administrative staff continue to run the office until the issue is resolved in a politically mature way.
The group also called upon all CoD members countrywide not to work or cooperate in any way or form with the recently elected leadership. The group termed the new leadership “unelected illegitimate and selfish-driven”.
“We call on all regional chairpersons, secretaries and the leaderships of the CoD wings, namely the Young Democrats and the Women Democrats, not to work in any way with the current leadership nor attend any meetings or activities organized by this self-imposed group of leaders.”
The group also refuted that terms of reference, as reported in New Era yesterday, came from their group and said the document was deliberately sent to the newspaper to delay the audit process from starting. The group claimed that they also do not agree with the persons named as part of the audit panel, and they will only subject themselves to an audit if they are convinced that the panel is impartial. The group provided six cases to prove that “procedures” were not followed at the extraordinary congress.