It will all become clear in the fullness of time, as they say.
On 1 August 2023, Moses Matyayi will take over as City of Windhoek CEO, ending close to four years without a CEO.
He has led Otjiwarongo as CEO since 2020. Before that, he was Otavi's CEO for nine years. Admittedly, the Windhoek leadership vacuum was exploited by inside and outside uncouth elements who understood noble Aristotle: “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
It originally started in 2014 with the departure of the enigmatic Niilo Taapopi. Shortly before his retirement, we had led a mass action to submit 14 000 land applications to the city. The tall CEO came to the application counting room tapping us on our shoulders.
This memory was recently refreshed when Joshua Mario, at a public meeting, announced that his family now has a home for he stood up, with 14 000 others, to apply in 2014. Taapopi was only succeeded by Robert Kahimise in 2017.
Before I joined the city council and became mayor in December 2020, we had several concerns apart from land and housing. We were alarmed by the projections that by 2041, Windhoek’s population would increase from 300 000 to over 800 000 inhabitants. We inquisitively considered the land, water, and energy questions for these inhabitants. Similarly, we were alive to the fact that the urban-rural divide was reaching an equilibrium. Indeed, we were alive to the fact that for our country, Windhoek is a big deal.
We thus resolved to enter the city to build an interventionist city to pursue our country’s developmental state aspirations.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get the desired numbers to implement our plans. We had to compromise and enter into voting arrangements with others as no one had the majority to singlehandedly form a government.
It was our country’s first experiment at this scale. Although I became mayor, it was a difficult environment. I had to work with people who agreed with you at 10h00 and diametrically changed at 10h05. I encountered individuals old enough to be my parents but compete with me as would teenagers desirous of getting into a high school team. But I don’t regret the experience.
It is one I still cherish.
As the going got tougher, Martin Luther King whispered; “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
By April 2021, it became clear that the arrangements won’t work. For posterity, I documented – in a coded language – what was happening in an address titled “of the theatre of silver and the criminalisation of the city; resisting the conversion of Windhoek into Hacienda Nápoles.” The address had this passage; “the presence of some of us at the helm of their Hacienda Nápoles was always going to be a problem… we knew that our presence would always be contested and resisted at every turn... I am prepared to be an ordinary councillor.”
There were, however, things we either got right or set in motion for future germination. One such intervention was changing policy to bring about transparency in the recruitment of top executives who were now required to do public presentations. Moses came second, to Conrad Lutombi, through this public process. We conquered efforts to abort this process and by late 2022, we successfully brought this recruitment back on track until the time when Moses finally accepted the offer to join the city next week.
He will find a giant organisation with more than 2 000 employees, a N$20 billion asset base and a N$5 billion budget. Compared to Otjiwarongo, Windhoek is what an elephant is to a goat. It is a city that requires sophistry and an analytical mind. It has a skilled workforce that is handsomely remunerated – which accounts for a low staff turnover. Windhoek directly provides electricity to its consumers. Moses joins at a time when salivating politicians want to introduce a middleman called Central Red.
Moses is best advised the day Central Red is introduced will be the beginning of the speedy degeneration of our nation’s capital – under his watch.
Negative publicity aside, Moses will find good infrastructure and a foundation for financial sustainability – this includes reformed accounting systems and standards, smart city initiatives including fibre monetisation (with the city's fibre only second to NamPower), council-owned housing programme, city-owned company, newly approved townships and forthcoming authorised planning authority.
This foundation is unfortunately buried by the fact that the city has lost information warfare. Left in the hands of lightweight athletes such as Harold Akwenye, the art of communication and information dissemination is one of the city's biggest deficits.
As with others before him, internal and external cabals that are cannibalistically hotspoting the city’s resources will position to capture his soul, eyes, and signature.
Moses is not a child; he needs no telling about the good and the bad of the stairs. Stairs assist in both going up and coming down. In both directions, it is possible to stumble and fall. Indeed, the city has assets and liabilities – beyond accounting that is. One’s approach to bees determines whether he gets honey or a sting.
Studying organisational culture may be the best place to start. On this score, organisational culture experts Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker are instructive; “the culture of any organisation is shaped by the worst behaviour the leader is willing to tolerate.”
In making his way to Windhoek, the biblical Moses story may offer valuable lessons. Whether he will take Windhoekers to the ‘promised land’ will depend on what he does, when, where, how, why and with who. We will be there to help him walk and build. We will equally be there to signal when he goes astray. Welcome to Windhoek, Moses! Let’s get to work.
*Job Shipululo Amupanda is a former mayor of Windhoek and the activist-in-chief of the Affirmative Repositioning movement. He holds a PhD in political studies from the University of Namibia.