Katjiua accuses govt of marginalising Ovaherero

Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) paramount chief Mutjinde Katjiua says there is a deliberate effort on the part of government to marginalise the Ovaherero community and keep them impoverished.He made the comments at a community briefing at Commando One in Okahandja following a meeting held with the OTA’s ozambara over the weekend.Katjiua, who has previously accused government of favouring Aawambo, said there was a systematic marginalisation occurring in Namibia.According to him, the Ovaherero community has not experienced any upwards progression since independence.“We have experienced 33 years of neglect, underdevelopment and marginalisation of our communities. No new development is happening,” he said.“If you take 33 years backwards retrospectively from the day of independence, the water infrastructure developed in our areas by the apartheid government is more than what we have today,” Katjiua said.‘Hugely underrepresented’The Ovaherero community is further limited from gaining positions in government and in public entities, he alleged.“People are limited to government tenders. Go to the procurement board, you have seen recently the people who were employed in Otjiwarongo in the tender board, all of them, one group, Owambo.”“Go and compare the directors, compare the permanent secretaries, compare deputy ministers, compare CEOs of parastatals - we have a limited number. There is a planned process of marginalisation, a plan being put in place to marginalise this nation,” Katjiua said.He added that government is also not making much effort to allocate resettlement farms to the Ovaherero who lost large tracts of land.“We are hugely underrepresented in those who are getting resettled on government farms, our farms. The Owambo-led government has never cared about land dispossession as disposed from the Damaras, the Nama, the San community and the Ovaherero people. The majority of those who lead government were never land-dispossessed,” he said.‘Siding with killers’The paramount chief also accused government of siding with Germany on the matter of the genocide.“Our government is siding with the killers, conniving with the German government not to pay reparations to the Ovaherero and Nama people, but to channel those funds to the implementation of Namibia’s fifth National Development Plan and Vision 2030. That is daylight theft," Katjiua said.He called on government to instead act as a facilitator and allow the affected communities to talk to the German government directly.

Katjiua accuses govt of marginalising Ovaherero

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-05-02

Please login to leave a comment

Katjiua accuses govt of marginalising Ovaherero

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-05-02

Please login to leave a comment

Login