WINDHOEK – City of Windhoek CEO Robert Kahimise has accused officials at the country’s biggest municipality of having benefited from underhand land deals and bribery for similar allocations.
Kahimise, addressing the media here on Friday, said it is no secret that the City was embroiled in unethical behaviors involving underhand land dealings.
The main beneficiaries of these deals, he said, were City officials who have since became millionaires and owners of multiple properties most of which are registered in their families’ names.
“Many of these officials have become so powerful despite some of them occupying clerical positions within the City municipality,” Kahimise said, adding that these are the same officials who created unnecessary delays and unfair practices in land applications and allocations.
“The public need to know that the continuous in-fighting and wrangling within the City is not necessarily about me and Kanime,” he said,
referring to the long standoff between him and the chief of the Windhoek City Police.
Naturally, he said, both him and City Police Chief Kanime are easy targets for the purpose of directing attention away from the bigger issues at play.
“There is a smaller system within a bigger system. There is a smaller council within the council at large,” he stresses.
“There is also a security leg, which I call City Police, which evidently does not respect authority, including the co-operation with the Namibian police,” Kahimise added.
Kahimise says what also raffle feathers are the redeployment, restructuring, housing and land delivery.
He said although the majority of the redeployed officials have embraced and accepted the change and transformation of their new roles with enthusiasm, two unnamed executives remain disgruntled.
“Certain officials that felt deprived of their strategic beneficial positions due to redeployments have remained disgruntled as well,” he said. To curb corruption and underhand land deals at the City, Kahimise said with the council’s approval, the City has managed to curb corruption and unethical behavior – specifically pertaining to City officials accepting bribes from the public through sting operations, a move he said has not gone well with many.
“The council has approved a conflict of Interest Policy, Anti-Money Laundering Policy, Establishment of Audit Risk Committee and, once again, the City is committed to reducing indiscipline throughout the organisation,” he said.
According to him, the squabbles at the City municipality are the underlying elements at play by way of destabilising the successful implementation of the City’s strategic plan, fostering tribal undertones and counter-productive power struggle for which he is made a scape goat.