Former President Hifikepunye Pohamba is still disheartened to see houses constructed through the mass housing initiative unoccupied and vandalised, while thousands of Namibians do not have decent housing. 

He registered his disappointment at the recent Swapo post-mortem meeting on the party’s poor performance during the 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections.

Pohamba, whose statement was availed to Nampa on Wednesday, said: “It is disheartening to see houses built with government funds empty and vandalised.”
He is, however, pleased to see that five years after the initiative was put on hold, at least a decision has been taken to allocate the houses in order to reduce the ever-increasing demand for housing in the country.
Earlier this year, Pohamba told Nampa in a separate interview how painful it is to witness his brainchild fall apart. It was aimed at addressing the acute national housing backlog which stood at 100 000 housing units in 2013. 
With regard to the state of Swapo, Pohamba pinned the blame for the troubles facing the former liberation movement on the emergence of independent candidates during elections. 
“This is one of the factors affecting the performance of the party during elections and needs to be interrogated. It is inconceivable for a member of Swapo to contest against the party and still claim to be a member of the party,” Pohamba posited. 
He said a disciplined Swapo cadre must at all times operate in the party’s best interest and that challenging the party at the polls does not fall in this bracket. 
He was seemingly referring to former presidential independent candidate Panduleni Itula who – while retaining his Swapo membership – contested against Geingob who was fielded by Swapo as its presidential candidate. 
Itula garnered 29% of the total votes cast while Geingob’s popularity among the electorate dropped drastically from 87% to 56%. 
On the division witnessed among Swapo’s rank and file, Pohamba blamed the two factions that competed viciously for Swapo’s heart and soul at the watershed 2017 elective congress – ‘Team Swapo’ and ‘Team Harambee.’ 
“I was hoping that after the congress, the two teams would dissolve and Swapo would be united as before. I have, however, noted that the division continues [to this day]. It is, therefore, my view that as long as we are divided, Swapo Party unity will be negatively affected,” he added. 
Pohamba then took on the elephant in the room, the Fishrot fishing quotas corruption scandal, which he said contributed to the loss of votes during the 2019 National Assembly elections. 
“We should ensure, at all times, that our actions do not put the name of the party in disrepute, thereby causing distrust among the electorate,” he noted. 
– Nampa