They said they’d had enough of Government deciding how to run the country and want the Cabinet and senior leaders to take orders from the party’s head office more seriously.
“Some (corrupt) people are protected and are untouchable but somebody talks of fighting corruption.
Stop singing a song that has no meaning and no seriousness,” SPYL secretary for economic affairs, Veikko Nekundi, told a media briefing in Windhoek yesterday.
He charged that Works Minister Helmut Angula oversaw and aided economic sabotage at TransNamib by conspiring with an illegal board and must be given the boot.
UNHOLY ALLIANCE Nekundi claimed to a packed hall that Angula appointed the new TransNamib board unprocedurally as there was no meeting of the State-Owned Enterprises Governance Council as per the Act to approve them.
“The losses of this corporation must directly lie at the doorstep of the Minister and the entire leadership of the Ministry of Works, together with the illegally appointed board.
Not the workers,” he said.
Contacted for comment, a furious Angula said the call for his axing was “nothing but an attempt to cover up the corruption, misuse of power by certain individual[s] within TransNamib, who are now taking cover under the unions and SPYL”.
According to Angula, it was now clear that TransNamib “loot” was distributed to certain individuals who are now “acting as protégés of the scam”.
Nekundi demanded that Angula resign “if he has any sense of integrity at all”.
“Alternatively, the Head of State should fire the Minister.
Article 41 is very clear on ministerial accountability.
Parliament is, therefore, called upon to institute proceedings to hold the Minister of Works accountable, individually, for the unnecessary financial losses to the country.
“The provisions of Article 39 of the Constitution stand to be implemented as well, so that a vote of no confidence could be passed against the superbly arrogant Minister of Works,” Nekundi said.
Angula said the corruption suggested by the youth league happened at TransNamib, which he did not work for, adding he did not organise the illegal strike.
He said the real looters of TransNamib seemed to have entered into an “unholy alliance” with the workers and the youth to “achieve one basic objective of turning the country into [an] ungovernable state”.
Angula accused Nekundi and the youth leaders of trying to cover up corrupt activities of their “paymaster’s crime”, warning that the “arm of the Government will sooner or later catch up” with the looters.
It was also clear during yesterday’s media briefing that the youth had lost some faith in Pohamba too.
‘CORRUPT DEALS’ In a sign that they want to use some leaders in the National Assembly to get rid of Angula, the SPYL said although the President appoints ministers, Parliament can remove them through a vote of no confidence.
Nekundi alleged that Angula was corrupt, claiming that he was part of the Toscanini diamond scam.
Accusations of corruption against Angula were first levelled by Nambib Resources, the owners of the Toscanini diamond-prospecting area on the Skeleton Coast.
The Minister was claimed to have shares in mining contractor Bret Investments, which is accused of siphoning diamonds from the Toscanini area.
Angula had previously denied the allegation that he was a shareholder.
The SPYL also called for the head of Youth Minister Willem Konjore, saying he was not consulting senior staff members and had a part in alleged deals to sell off Etosha National Park to American investors.
The youth called on the ruling party’s Central Committee to investigate the allegations about the sale of Etosha as part of a deal to get millions from the American government through the Millennium Challenge Account.
Konjore recently dismissed a SPYL member, Henny Seibeb, as his personal assistant.
The SPYL said they were fed up with Cabinet interfering in judicial issues by bashing the National Union of Namibian Workers for what the Youth League termed a “legal strike” at TransNamib.
Cabinet blasted the NUNW for organising the strike, which the High Court declared illegal.
TransNamib said it lost N$5 million a day during the strike.
The SPYL said simple mathematics revealed that earning N$5 million a day should have made TransNamib a company making billions a year.
“How, then, can the workers be paid so poorly? Where does the money go and how much dividends have been paid to the Government as shareholder?” Nekundi said.
For the SPYL, the losses submitted by the company to the courts were false and the Cabinet erred in supporting them.
“The NUNW, for God’s sake, should not be treated in this manner in order to give more ammunition to the RDP/NSHR alliance.
Who are we trying to please and for what?” Nekundi fumed.
He said leaders must be conscious that people voted for Swapo and not for the Government.
Thus, he said, the party had the right to demand accountability and say what they want.
“The SPYL is fed up because there are some people in our society who think that some offices/ministries and agencies are their personal kambashus,” Nekundi said.
“Either we are serious about corruption or we are not,”
Nekundi said.
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