Former Hardap regional governor Katrina Hanse-Himarwa has described late president Hage Geingob as generous and compassionate.

Her fondest memories with him, she said, include him driving to her house in Katutura to wish her strength after she was convicted of corruption.

“After landing from an African Union (AU) meeting after I was convicted, he drove to my house in Katutura to wish me strength. That, I will never forget in my life. Which president will do that ever? He was true and sincere to himself, and those whom he regarded as friends,” Hanse-Himarwa told Nampa on Sunday.

She was the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture from March 2015 until July 2019. Hanse-Himarwa was sentenced to pay a fine of N$ 50 000, or serve a direct prison sentence of 24 months after being found guilty in 2019 of wrongly and corruptly using her position as the Hardap regional governor to make changes to the original list of mass housing beneficiaries for the benefit of two of her relatives in December 2014.

She added that Geingob shaped her career in many ways.

“Every moment in his presence was a lifelong lesson. You wouldn’t be in Hage’s presence and leave without learning something. He was magnanimous. He was a man in a lion’s face with a lamb’s heart, generous in all his dealings, compassionate, inclusive and detribalised,” Hanse-Himarwa reminisced.

She stressed that she had worked with Geingob as a local authority councillor, as well as from her trade union days as a Namibia National Teachers Union (NANTU) member.

“He wholly believed in women and youth empowerment. This is so clear in how he appointed youth and women since his presidency. He made deliberate efforts to promote women and youth at all levels,” Hanse-Himarwa observed.

Geingob died on 4 February in a Windhoek hospital. - Nampa