RUNDU - Rundu acting CEO Sikongo Haihambo on Tuesday tendered his resignation citing the absence of a management committee due to deep-seated differences among Swapo councillors who persistently declined nominations and thus is “making his work difficult to execute especially now that the town is in a heap of issues”.

Haihambo’s resignation will take effect end of June, two months before his actual term was supposed to end.
“Yes, I have tendered my resignation, I’m not one of those people who just hang around in a position, when I’m in a position, I would want to impact lives but that has not been possible without a management committee. So maybe others have got better ideas, let them put their ideas forward, mine was to come and work and it has not been made possible,” said the acting head honcho.

Haihambo told New Era because of the political infighting, his work has not been made possible to turn things around. “We cannot be in ICU for long if your situation is critical, we have to go to the extreme to get out of that and I’m not blaming an individual, everybody was looking at his or her own environment but the impact or the effect thereof is that it’s not helpful to the residents.” 

“I would still want to give my utmost effort and would still want to operate even higher than what I have been operating, I would still want to give the best to my people that’s why I felt that 60 days would be a bit reasonable although maybe it’s not enough,” he noted.

Haihambo also noted that due to the infightings at council and the absence of the management committee, the process to recruit a new CEO is also dragging on.

“The adverts were done last year and it’s in the files, without a management committee, we cannot look at that. There are some key positions like manager for finance, there is no strategic executive for that position, and the recruitment is supposed to be done by the management committee,” he said.

Council is unable to hold disciplinary hearings. “Disciplinary hearings cannot be held, the other day I was tipped off and I went to the scene where a colleague was busy illegally selling of water meters and I cannot not do anything about it, there are certain things that are delegated to the management committee that I cannot do, should I do that, then obviously I’m on the wrong side of things but after all I was only intending to stay for six months,” he said.

Looking at the extension of his acting contract which was extended for another six months when his last term ended at the end of February, Haihambo noted he is not moving as intended as he really needs the support of a management committee to make progress. “People might say, no the town is looking better and so on but personally, I do not accept that we have turned things around, we have just moved in so I may get compliments but I’m not happy, I would have wanted to do more,” he said.

Under normal circumstances, Haihambo was supposed to tender his resignation to the chairperson of the management committee but in  absence he tendered it to the mayor Isack Kandingu.