A member of parliament says that Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is a victim of witch-hunting by those fellow Swapo members who don’t want to see her climbing higher on the ladder of her political career.
With Swapo’s elective congress slated for next year, people are out to tarnish the image of Kuugongelwa-Amadhila so that she would not stand any chance to be elevated to the top leadership of Swapo, and ultimately of the country.
This is what a member of the National Assembly Mr Modestus Amutse believes. “The Prime Minister didn’t do anything wrong. She is one of the best leaders we have who is committed to working for the benefit of this country. She will never do anything for her own benefit,” Amutse said last Friday at a small gathering in Oshikuku where he hails from.
Amutse used to be the regional councilor for Oshikuku Constituency before he was elected to be a member of the National Assembly in November 2019.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has been thrown into the spotlight after media reports revealed last month that her husband Mr Tobias Onesmus Amadhila had borrowed millions of dollars from the Development Bank of Namibia but he has never been taken to task for failure to pay back the loans.
At the time when the first loans were acquired, Mrs Amadhila was the minister of finance. And as minister of finance she was responsible for providing oversight and monitoring of the bank’s operations.
The bank, fully owned by the Government, was accused of favouring the businesses of Mrs Amadhila’s husband, although both Mrs and Mr Amadhila denied this.
Amutse points out that another person who is being targeted is the Deputy Prime Minister Mrs Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwa.
Nandi-Ndaitwa, who is the current Swapo vice-president, has had accusations of favouritism swirling around her over the reappointment of her younger sister who is the CEO of the Helao Nafidi Town Council although the CEO has reached retirement age.
“Our leaders are responsible people. We must not be busy with what can I do to tarnish others before the next congress, but what can I do to help each other. We are a responsible government,” Amutse said.
The previous Swapo elective congress, in 2017, was the most explosive of all the congresses in the history of Swapo, with members having come there divided into two groups named “Harambee” and “Team Swapo”. Both Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and Nandi-Ndaitwa were on the Harambee slate, which emerged victorious.
As a result of the congress victory of the Harambee team, almost all the big pillars of the Team Swapo fell out of government structures.
While President Hage Geingob declared that there will never be a repeat of the 2017 congress where the party was divided into two “slates”, the people who supported Geingob during his Harambee “slate” of that congress are now fearful of the reemergence of Team Swapo in next year’s congress where a replacement for Geingob as both president of the party and candidate for president of the country will be determined.
In the photo: Member of Parliament Modestus Amutse.
