The Kunene Regional Council has resolved to pay its employees their salaries for December 2021, following a lengthy heated meeting in Opuwo on Thursday.
The meeting, which spanned across five hours in the regional office’s boardroom, comes some 18 days after the employees were scheduled to receive their monthly salaries.
However, the employees, had to fend for themselves after the urban and rural development ministry blocked embattled chief regional officer, George Kamseb, from executing any formal business pertaining to the council.
Kamseb stands accused of having profiteered from a recruitment process marred by a barrage of irregularities.
“The employees have been paid as we speak. Those with First National Bank accounts have received their salaries,” said a source who attended the meeting.
Around 120 employees and three regional councillors were affected by the delayed payments.
At the heart of the impasse is the reappointment of Kamseb in July last year, following his suspension – on a full salary in 2016 – after allegations related to meddling in procurement, unauthorised expenditure and the appointment of consultants without the approval of the regional council surfaced.
Kamseb’s contract lapsed in 2018, but he was reappointed after he promised to discontinue his legal battle against the council.
Insiders say an investigation carried out by Anti-Corruption Commission in conjunction with the urban and rural development ministry hit a brick wall, clearing Kamseb of wrongdoing.
“If they investigated him [Kamseb] and found nothing, why then did the previous council not reinstate him,” a councillor who preferred to remain unknown said.
The meeting, it appears, also threw its weight behind Kamseb.
“We will wait for the court to pronounce itself. Let us lose in these Namibian courts. But you cannot tell us that Kamseb’s treatment was fair. You can’t trump up charges against a person just because they are not dancing your tune… This is a political mess, a clear miscarriage of justice,” said another source also briefed on the meeting.
Efforts to solicit comments from Kamseb were fruitless.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Kunene Regional Council, Hendrik Gaobaeb was quoted by a local newspaper last week as saying they have resorted to fighting urban and rural development minister Erastus Uutoni’s legal challenge against Kamseb’s reappointment in the High Court.
“We have been communicating with the ministry [asking them] for an audience. They refused but they communicated with our staff members telling them not to process the salary of the chief regional officer,” Gaobaeb said.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
