RUNDU – The Rundu Urban Swapo district executive committee says it stands by its decision to recall three local authority councillors in December last year. The executive committee also said it has submitted names of candidates to replace the three.
The local leadership recalled former mayor Isak Kandingu, former chairperson of the management committee Annastacia Antonio and councillor Toini Hausiku for alleged insurbordination.
Rundu Urban Swapo district coordinator Gabriel Hakusembe told New Era that the three former councillors were called to several meetings but failed to attend.
However, Kandingu disputed this.
“I personally attended some of these meetings but there are two that I didn’t attend, one was because I had a death in the family and thus could not attend to work and the other was when I was ill. My two colleagues gave their apologies for not attending these meetings,” Kandingu said.
According to Hakusembe, the local party leadership held a meeting on 9 December last year in an attempt to resolve internal matters at the Rundu council. However, he said, the three councillors failed to show up, resulting in their recall. Acting CEO Mathews Naironga said he was busy in a meeting and could therefore not respond to questions put to him by New Era regarding the state of affairs at the town council.
Meanwhile, the three recalled councillors have laid a complaint on Monday against the district executive committee. Nampa reported that the complaint was addressed to regional coordinator Otilie Shinduvi.
“The DEC (district executive committee) can only recommend to the regional executive committee the suspension of such officials or individual members of the party involved in serious misconduct or the violation of the constitution,” the trio indicated in their complaint.
“The REC (regional executive committee) would recommend to the party’s political bureau the suspension of any member for ratification,” they continued.
Approached for comment on Monday, Kandingu told Nampa that they laid the complaint because the residents are suffering due to “self-serving individuals” who want the councillors’ terms to be terminated.
– Additional reporting by Nampa