WALVIS BAY – The Walvis Bay municipality has been instructed to re-advertise the position of CEO for the third time now, following the unsuccessful outcome of their last attempt to fill the vacancy.

Only Gerson Karaerua, who once served as the acting CEO of Roads Contractor Company, was shortlisted in November last year for the position.

However, sole candidate Karaerua failed during the interview held on 16 June after garnering only 45% according to the points allocated by the interview panel.

“The panel does not recommend the appointment of Karaerua because he does not meet the set requirements. Therefore, we recommend that the position be re-advertised,” part of a document seen by New Era reads.

The post has been vacant since 2021 after the council opted not to renew the former CEO Muronga Haingura’s contract.

Chairperson of the Walvis Bay municipal council Richard Hoaeb yesterday also confirmed that the interview was unsuccessful.

He told New Era that the whole process has to be repeated for a third time to fill the vacant position.

“Yes, the last process, concluded on 16 June was unsuccessful, hence the position will be re-advertised again. It is unfortunately the case and it will take time to go through the process as these are all administrative procedures that need to be followed,” Hoaeb said.

He added that the council was not involved as it is an administrative matter but stressed the importance of filling the position as soon as possible.

The document further indicates that an external company, Seventy 7 Consultancy handled the initial process whereby 41 applications were received.

The process was then handed over to the municipal administration to select a shortlisting panel.

“The incumbent should display a good balance between sound understanding of technical aspects of infrastructure development, maintenance and provision of any relevant local authority service,” the report also reads. 

This resulted in only Karaerua being shortlisted.

“This caused division among the shortlisting panel as some of the panellists were not happy with the outcome. They felt that the selection process was not fair and should have been redone, as it was indeed abnormal to only shortlist one candidate. It’s unheard of,” one of the officials said yesterday.

The position was initially advertised in October 2021.

At the time, only five candidates met the set criteria and were shortlisted.

However, the process was abandoned after the five people shortlisted met the requirement but were not qualified for the position.

The position was advertised last year for the second time whereby the job description was amended to match Tier 1 municipalities such as Windhoek and Swakopmund.

- edeklerk@nepc.com.na