The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) has joined other opposition political parties in rejecting the re-appointment of Paulus Noa as Director General of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for the next five years.
In statement availed to Nampa on Monday, LPM said the bid by President Hage Geingob and the Swapo Party to push a motion through Parliament for Noa’s reappointment sends out a clear message that Namibia “has no intent to put qualified investigators with integrity that will uphold the dignity and protect its people and resources”.
The National Assembly last week approved the re-appointment of Noa and Advocate Erna van der Merwe as ACC Director-General and Acting Deputy Director-General respectively. The two were nominated by Geingob, alongside Elsie Nghikembua for the position of chairperson for the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), while Emmerentia Leonard and Joram Rukambe were recommended as ordinary ECN commissioners.
Both nominations were met with resistance by the opposition parties in the National Assembly, who accused Swapo of “bulldozing” the process and “ambushing” them.
Like other opposition parties, LPM too argues the process was bulldozed.
“It sets a very dangerous precedent if the president is to decide on the appointments of executives by bulldozing National Assembly procedure,” the LPM said.
“We need to mobilise our people to reject Noa’s appointment because his stay at the ACC has run its course. The ACC and ECN appointments need to be transparent to protect the integrity of the Republic of Namibia,” it added.
On Thursday last week, after the opposition parties failed to halt the process of approving the nominations, several of their members walked out of the session, threatening to approach the High Court on an urgent basis to get an interdict. They argued procedures were not followed on how the issue was brought to Parliament and that parliamentarians were not given enough time to study the nominations.
After they walked out, the session, which mainly consisted of Swapo parliamentarians, went ahead with approving the nominations.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
