New City of Windhoek CEO Moses Matyayi says without a functional management committee (MC), their hands as technocrats remain tied in the execution of their duties.
He painted this worrisome picture yesterday when the City once again failed to fill the existing MC vacancies.
Last December’s meeting elected Swapo councillor Queen Kamati as mayor, and her deputy is National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) councillor and former mayor Joseph Uapingene.
So far, the MC is made up of three Swapo councillors, being Austin Kwenani, Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma and Fransina Kahungu, the latter a seasoned educator, Windhoek municipal councillor and politician.
“This process was not finalised accordingly. We had elected the mayor and the deputy mayor, which then would lead to the election of the management committee members. [As for] the management committee members, only three of them were elected last year. Therefore, two [vacancies remain]. They needed to be five,” Matyayi said in his opening
remarks.
The job of the management committee is to make sure that the decisions of the council are carried out.
“The constituting of the management committee is critical. It is legal, it is a law, and it must be abided to and complied with at all times, not only by the administration, but by the leaders [political office-bearers] in order to ensure that the function of the institution continues, which without it, we will not be able to continue with the business and processes of the institution,” he stressed.
But Matyayi’s hope was misplaced as this would not come to pass on the day, as the meeting would once more fail to elect the new MC members.
When Windhoek magistrate Ndapewa Selma Amadhila as presiding officer took to the podium, she invited the councillors present to submit the nominations of candidates.
“Do I need to repeat myself? Any nomination? Are there no nominations? Can you all hear me? Are there no nominations?” Amadhila kept asking for over five minutes to a gallery whose silence was deafening.
Perplexed, she then adjourned the meeting to provide councillors with an opportunity to caucus amongst themselves on the way forward.
“Seeing that there are no nominations, we will then have to adjourn the proceedings of today to the next viable date,” she said.
Following the adjournment, the councillors agreed to put the election on ice until 8 February at 14h30, Kamati informed Amadhila.
Matyayi did not take this lightly.
As could be deduced from his posture and calculated wording, the CEO and his staff are frustrated by the leadership vacuum brought about by the incomplete MC.
But addressing the elephant in the room, he said: “For whatever it is worth, we have a city to run. And definitely, we need to go and run it. But unfortunately, we can’t run it if you don’t have the leadership structure sorted out. It gives us inconveniences and some anomalies in our planning.”
The former Otjiwarongo CEO added: “I still urge the members to sit, talk to one another, and let us have a purpose for why we have been brought to this house. Otherwise, we are inconveniencing the residents of Windhoek; we are inconveniencing the machinery of this organisation, and as they say, ‘everything rises and falls on leadership’”.