The President’s falsehoods about me

It is very sad and unfortunate that President Hage Geingob, in response to a very fair question about the Namibian House from which no citizen should be excluded, chose to wage a fight with an individual citizen who was neither there nor a member of the august House.

The President is more than correct to always argue that in Namibia every citizen should be presumed innocent till found guilty by a competent tribunal. However, I have been treated right through like I do not enjoy the same rights the President is obligated to protect in the Republic.

First, it was neither constitutional nor proper for the President of a constitutional democracy to use the opportunity in the National Assembly to continue humiliating and vilifying an individual citizen who, I repeat, was neither present nor a member of the National Assembly or Council. It is not done in democratic systems when the purpose of SONA is very clear.

I am therefore obligated to respond to the falsehoods that the President of the Republic of Namibia peddled in his habitual anger and expression of personal hatred towards me. In his countenance of his classification that I am a failure, he preferred the following reasons:

2. He repeated the statement he made in Rundu in August 2019 that people told him that I was not a trustful Swapo member. That happened in 1993 when Dr Peter Katjavivi assigned me to do fundraising for the new University of Namibia in New York. All the three persons whom he named to have told him that in 1993 had good relations with me all along. How does a gossip in 1993 explain my failure at Nipam in 2014/2015?

3. He repeated the story of the Windhoek municipal account as the main reason that made him order my dismissal over a weekend. Here are the facts:

I was interviewed for the position of Executive Director for Nipam on 14 February 2013. I put my name in the hat like any other interested citizen. I was surprised and honoured that I was told to have been the preferred candidate. On 28 March 2013 I was flown by the Namibian government from Johannesburg to Windhoek to meet with the Prime Minister [Geingob] and the chairman of the Nipam Board and secretary to cabinet Mr. Frans Kapofi. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Geingob could not be at the meeting as he was sent by President Pohamba to the state memorial service of the late governor Kamehozu of Omaheke on that day. Mr Kapofi explained the circumstances and asked whether I would accept the offer of employment if it was made to me. That was the reason I was flown to Windhoek on that day. I was a senior employee of the University of South Africa (Unisa) at the time. I assured Mr Kapofi that it would more than an honour for me to make a small contribution where I had some competency, namely the transformation of the Namibian public service. I must admit that Mr Kapofi had shown a genuine interest in my return to my motherland at that moment and even before, whenever we ran into each other. At the end of that meeting, Mr Kapofi asked the company secretary of Nipam to show me the facilities where I would work. I was taken straight from State House to the Nipam campus and thereafter I was taken to Eros Park and was shown the house that was recently renovated for the incoming Executive Director of Nipam. I was never aware that the job that I applied for came with a house. I was told on that day that the first Executive Director of Nipam lived there, and the renovation was completed for the second office holder who was unable to move into the house because he was called back to his country. On that day I was informed that it was the house that was prepared for anyone who became the Executive Director of Nipam following the interview process. Therefore, the President's statement that I asked for a government house is completely false and politically motivated. To be clear, I was in the process of renovating a house I bought shortly after my arrival. How is this a failure in terms of my abilities to do what I was employed to do?

c. The President argued that there was an agreement of termination of my employment. There was and is no such agreement. When Mr Simataa handed me the letter terminating my employment he said that it was what the President ordered. I have a voice recording of that statement. People will remember that when I went back to the office to collect my items, I was barred at the gate by more than six armed Special Task Team police officers who in their kindness apologised for treating me that way. They politely said the order came from Mr Simataa.

5. There is more to this story in relation to how Mr Simataa, at the behest of the President, tried to gather evidence of wrongdoing and there was nothing. I need to mention that Mr Simataa threatened to take me for obedience training by way of observing how the leadership of the then SME Bank was obeying him, unlike me who asked questions. For now, my wish is only to respond to the unfortunate utterances the President made in Parliament during his SONA on 6 April 2022, a record that will go down in history as abuse of power and a violation of the Constitution. Needless to say, I was never charged, never suspended, never taken for disciplinary action as prescribed by our laws and the Constitution. I was simply told to resign with immediate effect and the person who was employed to take over from me was informed and negotiated with before the weekend of my dismissal. Hence, he was in the office on 9 December 2015. In other words, I was presumed and pronounced guilty without any due process.