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Home / Suspended Ondonga councillors dragged to court
Suspended Ondonga councillors dragged to court
2018-06-26Staff Report 2 Nuusita Ashipala ONGWEDIVA – Chief Immanuel Kauluma Elifas and his traditional councillors have approached the Windhoek High Court to bar suspended councillors from holding meetings. Elifas is traditionally known as Omukwaniilwa, which in the Ndonga vernacular refers to traditional leader. “You are accordingly strongly advised to withdraw your application and desist from holding the intended meeting,” read a letter from Omukwaniilwa and his councillors’ lawyers, Shikongo Law Chambers. The application was filed on June 13 and will be heard on July 27. The lawsuit is against Ondonga chief designate Fillemon Shuumbwa Nangolo as the first respondent, suspended councillors Josef Asino, Peter Kauluma, Vilho Kamanya, Kashona Malulu, Fillemon Nambili, John Walenga and the Minister of Urban and Rural Development. The suspended councillors have plans to convey a meeting at their new premises at Punyu Hotel on Saturday. Despite having been served with letters to halt convening meetings, the suspended Ondonga Traditional Authority secretary Joseph Asino said on Saturday the planned meeting will go ahead as scheduled. “We will go ahead as planned, because we know that is not the Omukwaniilwa’s doing,” Asino said. The meeting called by Asino and suspended OTA chairman Peter Kauluma seeks to provide information against the pending cases filed with the Oshakati High Court last year. The suspended councillors last year filed several cases with the High Court last year, amongst some of them interdicting Elifa’s wife, Secilia Elifas, from meddling in the affairs of the OTA. They further seek to shed light on what has been transpiring at their new office, known as Ondonga East, and to allegedly hear from those who have been misusing Elifas’ name. Meanwhile, letters served to Kauluma and Asino charge that the two parties misrepresented themselves as either the chairman or secretary of the OTA. It further says the new office at Punyu at Onethindi is also misrepresented as the temporary Ondonga traditional office. “You may have noticed from the aforementioned application that it is alleged, amongst others, that you are acting in defiance of the OTA and Omukwaniilwa by misrepresenting yourselves as OTA officials and by conducting OTA functions and duties,” a summons addressed to Kauluma and Asino from Shikongo Law Chambers reads. Omukwaniilwa Elifas through his press aide Naeman Amalwa refers to the new office at Onethindi as a rebellion aimed at dividing the Ondonga people further. “The so-called meeting called by the suspended traditional councillors is not genuine and should be regarded to be illegal,” Amalwa stated. 2018-06-26Staff Report 2
