Namibian Sun

OGONE TLHAGE







WINDHOEK

The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) says its member and the chairperson of the Erongo regional council Ciske Smith-Howard has not been suspended.

This follows reports last week that Smith-Howard had been suspended by the party.

Clarifying matters, IPC said Smith-Howard was simply retrained.

Smith-Howard told the party’s leadership that she did not like the manner in which Henties Bay council member Siegfried //Garoeb had conducted himself, while her residence in the Swakopmund constituency had also been questioned.

//Garoeb faced scrutiny for having allegedly been previously fired by the same town council where he worked, for maladministration.

“I just think IPC cannot allow an official who was fired from that council to be now in charge of it. It’s a simple principle of governance,” she said on the Evening Review show last week.

They said, she said

“Under no circumstances and in no manner whatsoever has Patriot Ciske been suspended from her membership of the IPC nor her membership of the Erongo regional council and any portfolio she holds thereunder,” IPC’s national general secretary Christine Aochamus said.

She added that Smith-Howard remained a member of the IPC.

“Patriot Ciske remains a full member of the IPC party and bound by her oath of membership. Oath of members of the legislative and is bound by the IPC constitutional provisions while the investigations are being conducted,” Aochamus added.

Smith-Howard last week said IPC president Panduleni Itula is ruling IPC with an iron fist and according to his own whims.

“Itula autocratically suspended me. We met in Windhoek this week and he went ahead with his decision without consultation with the party’s collective leadership,” she said.

“I am disappointed in Dr Itula. He’s not the man I thought he was. He does not subscribe to the principle of consultative leadership. I am disillusioned and disappointed in [his] leadership.”