By Kuvee Kangueehi
Windhoek
The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) says it wants to focus on the formulation of policies concerning the democratisation and development of the country and is not interested in the politics of personal vilification and destruction.
Addressing a press conference in the capital on Friday, the interim President of RDP Hidipo Hamutenya said former Swapo Party President Sam Nujoma has demonstrated that he has no sense of common decency.
Hamutenya was reacting to a statement Nujoma made almost 10 days ago about RDP when he officially opened the Swapo Party Central Committee meeting.
Nujoma said the RDP are the enemies of the Namibian nation, saboteurs of the country’s economy when they were members of the government, were failed politicians and a destabilising factor. He also blamed the failure of companies such as DBC, AMCOM, NDC and Pidico on Hamutenya.
Hamutenya said Nujoma seems to have forgotten that following the creation of a ministry of Higher Education and Employment Creation, the DBC was placed under that minister, then Nahas Angula. He noted that Angula was further tasked with creating commercial entities out of the DBC and that he (Hamutenya) was not part of that exercise.
“It was the Minister of Higher Education and Employment Creation who oversaw the creation of entities like Patriotic Construction Company, Namibia Bricks Enterprise, DBC Security Company.”
In its media statement the RDP added that Hamutenya was not part of the recruitment of the people who were tasked to manage these entities such as Compion who was head of Patriotic Construction Company, which spent tens of thousands of dollars to finance Nujoma’s hunting trips.
In reaction, Angula has said the companies were never under his supervision and he was only called in ‘to put out the fires’.
Angula who is now Prime Minister says the companies were under the Ministry of Trade, and the problem started when ex-combatants trained at these institutions were not able to find employment despite obtaining qualifications.
Angula said Cabinet established a committee, which was expected to link the training of the ex-combatants at DBC with employment and the committee – chaired by him – assisted in this regard.
“I only assisted as requested but the companies such as DBC remained under the ministry of trade and it was Hamutenya’s responsibility to supervise the running of these institutions.”
Angula said Hamutenya should not try and shift the blame to others and should take responsibility as the act clearly made him responsible.
“He must not try and run away or drag other people into their fights, he must fight their battles there and leave us alone.”
In the media statement, the RDP stated Hamutenya has in no way benefited from a single penny from any of these projects.
“Even the ‘kangaroo court’ that Nujoma and his attorney general organised to frame Hamutenya failed to come up with any evidence of wrongdoing and the names of those who were exposed for having benefited from the DBC/AMCOM funds included that of Nujoma himself and several other individuals who are still high up in the Namibian government”.
The RDP charged that Nujoma has been quiet about a score of failed or corruption-tainted developments projects such as the Social Security Commission (SSC), ODC, NDF arms deals, Windhoek Country Club and Resorts, Uri /Khubis, Air Namibia and Avid Investment.