Some community members at Rosh Pinah in the ||Kharas Region recently staged a peaceful demonstration accusing the Oranjemund Constituency councillor, Lazarus Nangolo and his office of nepotism when allocating government tenders and jobs at the mining town.

In their petition seen by Nampa, the group raised concern that youth and community development projects by government do not reach the community but selected individuals.

“There is discrimination and selective sharing of information on projects, youth and community programmes. Employment and tender allocation by some companies are done unprocedurally, discriminatorily, corruptly in most cases with no advert and no transparency,” they claimed.

The group also accused some companies at Rosh Pinah of exploiting their employees and some companies bringing people from elsewhere for general work while residents in the town remain unemployed and suffering.

“The bringing of employees from outside Rosh Pinah and the region must be stopped if it is not specialised skills, the experience is in Rosh Pinah, advertise positions and follow a fair and acceptable recruitment process,” said the group.

Regarding the new Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Park at the town, the group said no notice or announcement was done to call for those that would want to rent the stalls at the facility.

They claimed that they have written letters to the councillor’s office several times concerning the opening of the new SME park but no response was provided.

The group also called on the proclamation of Rosh Pinah as a town.

Approached on Thursday, Nangolo acknowledged that the petition was received by his office but could not elaborate citing that he is out of office and has not seen the petition.

“My office did receive the petition, I am currently out of town but we have planned a meeting with the group on Sunday, and I will only be able to comment after that meeting,” he said.

Source: Namibia Press Agency