Windhoek
President Hage Geingob has laughed off media reports that he reprimanded Swapo secretary general Nangolo Mbumba for allegedly not doing much to take the party forward, despite him receiving a ‘huge salary’.
Last week, the English weekly Confidenté reported that Geingob had an explosive public spat with Mbumba at Walvis Bay and had accused the ruling party’s chief administrator of not briefing him regularly on party affairs, among a host of contentious issues.
Addressing a delegation of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) leadership at State House on Tuesday, Geingob dismissed the report, saying he did not even meet Mbumba while at the coast. “I never had a war with Comrade Mbumba. He and I come a long way,” Geingob told visiting unionists.
“People can talk with authority in this country, they can even quote you directly as if you said that from your own mouth. In the newspapers they put it in quotation marks that I said that, even if I haven’t said that,” he said.
The president said some people are disappointed that the country is enjoying peace and moving forward.
“I was not even with Mbumba,” said Geingob. Geingob said he also read that the NUNW secretary general Job Muniaro and federation president Ismael Kasuto were not on talking terms – urging them to smoke the peace pipe if reports of a spat were true.
“I am surprised that you are sitting next to each other today,” he said.
“I am glad that you are here today in such a big number to prove to us that you are not disintegrating, as we are made to believe,” he said. He called on the federation’s leadership to join his revolutionary harambee prosperity plan to help fight poverty in the country.