The chairperson of the Kavango East Regional Council Damian Maghambayi is inviting leaders of the aggrieved community of Mashare to come forward and present their case in a peaceful manner for the council to establish grounds on how to address their grievances.

He warned the community from taking the law into their own hands, saying it won’t help any situation. 

The angry demonstrators, who were earlier stopped by the Namibian Police from locking down the Mashare constituency office and demanding the removal of regional councillor Filiphus Nkore Mavara, were supposed to demonstrate recently. However, due to not getting authorisation from the police, they called off the demonstration until further notice. 

The police said they had to look into the matter before giving them the go-ahead as demonstrations are a threat to national security, hence need to be looked into.

“We gave the police a letter requesting permission to have a peaceful demonstration, but in turn they called us in and interrogated us. To date, they have not given us the green light. Due to that, we were unable to hold a peaceful demonstration to air our grievances,” explained Theofilie Lingwe Kativa, who was part of the committee that wants the councillor out.

“I urge the community of Mashare not to take the law into their own hands, but to holistically address the concerns in a very peaceful manner by also engaging my office accordingly,” he said.

Maghambayi said on 25 April 2022, he received an unsigned letter from the concerned community members of the Mashare constituency, informing him about the dispute they have with the director of the commercial farming unit for blueberries in Mashare. They accused him of unlawful labour practices by allegedly terminating the jobs of locals employed at the farm without warranted reasons. The community has also accused their councillor of allegedly being in cahoots with the director of the said farm as they tried to engage him to resolve the issue of the unfair dismissals of employees, but he didn’t come to the party.

“I was also informed that the concerned community members have a dispute with their regional councillor, whom they accused of failing to bring the most-needed development to their constituency, and that the councillor is involved in selling land without the consent of the community,’’ he continued.

New Era was unable to get comment from the Mashare irrigation project’s managing director Lourens le Grange on the concerns raised by the inhabitants, while the councillor was not reachable.