ONGWEDIVA - The Omusati Regional Council yesterday appointed its director of general services Gervasius Kashindi as its new chief regional officer (CRO) for the region. 
Kashindi’s appointment comes 10 months after council refused to renew its former CRO Protasius Andowa’s contract.

Andowa’s contract ended in November last year. Kashindi has been the Acting CRO since December last year. His contract is effective from October this year. Chairperson of the Omusati Regional Council Modestus Amutse said Kashindi was appointed on merit, contrary to allegations that he was appointed because he is already within council.

Amutse further refuted claims that the council was withholding information from some councillors as is reported by some media houses, citing that the recommendations made by the interviewing panel are available to everyone. “All the processes were correctly followed and adhered to and he was appointed for scoring the highest in the interview for the position,” said Amutse. Queried on the performance of Kashindi during the 10 months that he has been acting, Amutse said under his leadership the council was able to obtain an unqualified audit for the just ended financial report. He said there were about only three regional councils with [unqualified] audit reports. Equally, Amutse said the council under his leadership was also able to implement many of the pending capital projects and has been keen to monitor projects from the ground.

“I was mostly impressed by his speed to implement council resolutions,” said Amutse. Before Andowa’s contract came to an end last year, he was together with the director of finance Elizabeth Mutota suspended and investigated over the missing N$12.3 million.

The council had allegedly failed to explain how the N$12.3 million which the council had borrowed from the line ministry was spent.

The money was aimed at financing developmental projects in the region.
The two were reinstated in June 2017 after council finished its investigation against them.