EDITORIAL
Pressure is mounting on defence minister Peter Vilho and he has done nothing to substantively convince the public that Job Amupanda’s obsession with his name is due to anything but corruption.
The minister, one of the most articulate members of Cabinet, has been largely mute on allegations of corruption, answering vaguely and in patches. He hasn’t done anything to reverse the mounting negative perception that now engulfs his name.
For a man who has listed barely anything tangible in the assets register at Parliament, Vilho has failed to clear the contradiction between what he actually owns and the humble items he jotted down in that book.
Any public official whose conscience is clear and who subscribes to the ethos of transparency would come clean and prove their innocence. He is not a private citizen and thus has no privilege to remain silent to allegations as serious as these.
President Hage Geingob too owes the nation, at the bare minimum, feedback on the matter because people have started to question his own silence amid the myriad of damaging allegations.
The president must summon his courage and demand answers from the minister, if he hasn’t done that already. If he is satisfied with the answers given, he has every reason to keep Vilho in the job. But to simply fold hands like an altar boy cannot be accepted.
The minister, one of the most articulate members of Cabinet, has been largely mute on allegations of corruption, answering vaguely and in patches. He hasn’t done anything to reverse the mounting negative perception that now engulfs his name.
For a man who has listed barely anything tangible in the assets register at Parliament, Vilho has failed to clear the contradiction between what he actually owns and the humble items he jotted down in that book.
Any public official whose conscience is clear and who subscribes to the ethos of transparency would come clean and prove their innocence. He is not a private citizen and thus has no privilege to remain silent to allegations as serious as these.
President Hage Geingob too owes the nation, at the bare minimum, feedback on the matter because people have started to question his own silence amid the myriad of damaging allegations.
The president must summon his courage and demand answers from the minister, if he hasn’t done that already. If he is satisfied with the answers given, he has every reason to keep Vilho in the job. But to simply fold hands like an altar boy cannot be accepted.
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Namibian Sun
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