Executive Mayors: Shouldn’t Be A Jobs-For-Comrades Scheme

IT seems like it is a given that executive mayors will soon be appointed to run cities and towns alongside chief executive officers on a full-time basis.

I have my reservations about the pace of introduction, how the appointments will be made, affordability of the position as well as how the reporting channels would work.
Local Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo this week again announced his intentions to push through the appointment of executive mayors in full-time positions.
Local authorities are also pushing for the appointment of full-time councillors but that’s non-negotiable in my view. To do precisely what when there are already so many council employees? I’m not prepared to entertain the possibility.
Some countries have executive mayors but they come with very strict working conditions and goals.
I believe that Namibian councillors, especially in the management which is supposed to have a bird’s eye view of council operations, operate in a ‘meeting councillors’ environment. Their only major task currently is to attend meetings and many do not have an in-depth knowledge of the workings of councils.
Getting a full-time executive mayor will thus be slightly more affordable rather than put councillors on such terms.
Such a mayor should run with the implementation of decisions in tandem with a chief executive officer (CEO). If the two operate well together, it could improve the speed of implementation of decisions by the administration.
Currently, we have management committees but they are part-time and their monitoring of the implementation of decisions is limited to the times they meet.
Because of the dynamics of local authorities, I prefer that executive mayors be elected instead of being appointed by a Minister or the President. They must be accountable to the voters.
Having said that, it might be difficult for reporting systems because voters will have a tough time to measure the success of such a person since they do not always have access to information which will help them to do so.
However, if they are appointed directly by either the Minister or the President, clear goals can be set and regular assessments conducted to measure the implementation of such targets.
Currently, the President appoints regional governors.
My problem with the appointment of the governors is the lack of clarity on their accountability.
We have no idea about the goals set for them, how they are measured and what will happen if they are not achieved. Basically the same which applies to the Ministers, whom, we are told, supposedly report to the President (appointing authority) at quarterly intervals.
For transparency’s sake, President Hifikepunye Pohamba needs to reveal the targets he set for each Minister and governor upon his or her appointment. Are they just appointments or performance contracts, for instance? If someone does not perform, what happens to them? Can they be fired or will they continue to collect fat cheques until the five year cycle is completed?
If we don’t know their targets, they remain solely accountable to State House and not to the electorate.
When such circumstances prevail, governance becomes pathetic.
It is partly the reason why some regional councils as well as ministries operate on an ‘auto-pilot’ system. You hardly hear what some governors, for instance, do.
With executive mayors, we need to bring in efficiency.
For starters, get people with good educational backgrounds who will drive the economy of a town and have a good world-view.
You can’t give someone with a narrow view millions and expect them to deliver! You might lead them into corruption. In other words, we need to scale up big time to get better outcomes.
I must hasten to caution that the negative to an executive mayor would be that they can become too powerful through either close links with the CEO or staff members. In the process they can destroy a council.
Others could be engaged in constant in-fighting with staff or CEOs and this could be to the detriment of the entire council.
But what is certain is that we don’t need a jobs-for-comrades scheme or to just get cadres of the ruling party in a opposition-dominated council. That also shouldn’t be the objective of executive mayors.
Those in authority need to think thoroughly before pushing through the changes to the appointment of executive mayors.

Khorixas Group Must Step Aside

THE Ministry of Regional and Local Government’s decision not to act against those arrested and charged with corruption at Khorixas borders on hypocrisy.

The Government spends millions on infrastructural development in various regions and also assists local authorities with bailouts whenever they are in trouble, yet the Ministry tells us that it does not want to get involved in driving out graft.
I do understand that the case in which the councillors and employees of Khorixas Town Council are involved might be regarded as sub judice and that they are not guilty until proven as such. Yet, it is best that they be removed from their work stations for now in order to ensure a smooth investigation and prevent any interference from their side.
As it is now, the chief executive officer, Nicodemus Gaeseb, corporate affairs and human resources officer Eben Xoagub, housing and property officer Daniel Geiseb, as well as councillors Berlinda Xoagus (who is the wife of the CEO and a former NamPost postmaster) and Elrey Esau, stand accused of concocting a fake tender to help cover a cash shortage at the local post office.
They are charged along with Jeremias Kheimseb, Isaskar Ganeb and Reverend Barry Goamub. Close to N$400 000 is allegedly involved.
As things stand now, all the employees and councillors have access to the Town Council offices.
In fact they report daily for work and continue as if nothing of the sort has happened.
For the Ministry to say that they cannot interfere is outright hypocrisy because Government has intervened in similar instances at other towns and villages.
Mind you, some of those who are suspected in the case have rights to sign Council cheques and thus have access to millions, such as money for capital projects and the build together scheme which runs in Khorixas.
Also, history can prove that lower-ranked employees in the Khorixas Town Council were suspended for things such as petrol theft the minute such acts were discovered.
Ideally, and if those suspected of involvement in the case were serious about the fight against corruption, they would have stood aside when the Anti-Corruption Commission moved in with the investigation.
That is why I am also baffled at the fact that Swapo, for instance, has not suspended their councillors, Xoagus and Esau.
In 2004, when Joel Kaapanda was still the Minister of Regional and Local Government, the Government vowed to weed out corruption in local councils and declared the era of State bailouts for embattled municipalities over.
After each election the Ministry also spends around N$500 000 on a series of induction workshops for new councillors countrywide. Such workshops are aimed at sensitising the new councillors not to fall into the same traps of corruption and mismanagement of Government resources.
Yet, after spending such amounts and when even more goes missing, the Government throws up its arms in impotence.
That is unacceptable.
Similarly political parties should bury their heads in the sand, because when the people rise up, the same politicians blame them for not following procedures.
This in effect leaves the people without the voice or the means to remove the corrupt and keeps the masses in conditions that cement the propensity for failure and poverty.
When towns such as Okahandja and Rehoboth had problems, the Government intervened to the extent that even the CEO and Mayor were removed.
Why can’t the same be applied at Khorixas?
I am saying this because it affects the confidence people have in the leadership and management of the town. And it should not stop at Khorixas!

Executive Mayors: Shouldn’t Be A Jobs-For-Comrades Scheme

IT seems like it is a given that executive mayors will soon be appointed to run cities and towns alongside chief executive officers on a full-time basis.

I have my reservations about the pace of introduction, how the appointments will be made, affordability of the position as well as how the reporting channels would work.
Local Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo this week again announced his intentions to push through the appointment of executive mayors in full-time positions.
Local authorities are also pushing for the appointment of full-time councillors but that’s non-negotiable in my view. To do precisely what when there are already so many council employees? I’m not prepared to entertain the possibility.
Some countries have executive mayors but they come with very strict working conditions and goals.
I believe that Namibian councillors, especially in the management which is supposed to have a bird’s eye view of council operations, operate in a ‘meeting councillors’ environment. Their only major task currently is to attend meetings and many do not have an in-depth knowledge of the workings of councils.
Getting a full-time executive mayor will thus be slightly more affordable rather than put councillors on such terms.
Such a mayor should run with the implementation of decisions in tandem with a chief executive officer (CEO). If the two operate well together, it could improve the speed of implementation of decisions by the administration.
Currently, we have management committees but they are part-time and their monitoring of the implementation of decisions is limited to the times they meet.
Because of the dynamics of local authorities, I prefer that executive mayors be elected instead of being appointed by a Minister or the President. They must be accountable to the voters.
Having said that, it might be difficult for reporting systems because voters will have a tough time to measure the success of such a person since they do not always have access to information which will help them to do so.
However, if they are appointed directly by either the Minister or the President, clear goals can be set and regular assessments conducted to measure the implementation of such targets.
Currently, the President appoints regional governors.
My problem with the appointment of the governors is the lack of clarity on their accountability.
We have no idea about the goals set for them, how they are measured and what will happen if they are not achieved. Basically the same which applies to the Ministers, whom, we are told, supposedly report to the President (appointing authority) at quarterly intervals.
For transparency’s sake, President Hifikepunye Pohamba needs to reveal the targets he set for each Minister and governor upon his or her appointment. Are they just appointments or performance contracts, for instance? If someone does not perform, what happens to them? Can they be fired or will they continue to collect fat cheques until the five year cycle is completed?
If we don’t know their targets, they remain solely accountable to State House and not to the electorate.
When such circumstances prevail, governance becomes pathetic.
It is partly the reason why some regional councils as well as ministries operate on an ‘auto-pilot’ system. You hardly hear what some governors, for instance, do.
With executive mayors, we need to bring in efficiency.
For starters, get people with good educational backgrounds who will drive the economy of a town and have a good world-view.
You can’t give someone with a narrow view millions and expect them to deliver! You might lead them into corruption. In other words, we need to scale up big time to get better outcomes.
I must hasten to caution that the negative to an executive mayor would be that they can become too powerful through either close links with the CEO or staff members. In the process they can destroy a council.
Others could be engaged in constant in-fighting with staff or CEOs and this could be to the detriment of the entire council.
But what is certain is that we don’t need a jobs-for-comrades scheme or to just get cadres of the ruling party in a opposition-dominated council. That also shouldn’t be the objective of executive mayors.
Those in authority need to think thoroughly before pushing through the changes to the appointment of executive mayors.

Councillors must heed Ekandjo’s warning

I AM glad Local Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo told regional councillors to keep politics out of their work.

He needs to do the same with local authority councillors who keep on meddling in the actual running of municipalities, town councils and villages.
This they do for own benefit and to advance certain political agendas to the detriment of such councils and villages.
Addressing regional councillors in Oshakati this week, Ekandjo called on them to put political differences aside since such wrangling has become “a terminal cancer that eats the core of the service delivery to the communities”.
He wants it curbed right at the onset as new regional councillors start their tenure.
I agree with the former teacher’s assertion that some of them use council meetings to advance their own agendas or to settle scores with administrative staff.
But these things happen even more at town and village council level.
Operations of councils such as Okahandja, Keetmanshoop, Usakos, Omaruru and Otavi in the past were crippled by political gangsterism, factionalism and interference in the running of the institutions by people who should only have oversight duties.
Their role is to guide management with policies but many kept on making daily appearances at such institutions and roaming the corridors aimlessly.
Ekandjo’s refreshing candour needs to be followed up with action.
He needs to get senior staff at head office to keep tabs on such councillors for timely interventions that will call them to order.
The past 10 to 15 years have been unbearable for many staff at such councils because of politicians who failed to act as overseers who should interrogate why certain projects fail and their decisions are not implemented.
They need to build expertise in local authority management.
In fact, that is why it is important for political parties to nominate candidates with at least a decent level of management or organisational skills to represent them on such councils instead of those who shout their slogans the loudest.
Once council operations are in full swing, political charm can no longer be the major asset. It is a fact that leadership can’t be faked for too long.
Therefore councillors must be able to challenge administrative staff to greater heights instead of employing bully tactics which will discourage them or force them out.
Ekandjo spoke of “bad apples”.
There were many in the previous councils but we hope last year’s election has somehow cleaned up the mess and that the next five years will be marked by people full of zeal and purpose.
Since Swapo secretary general Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana spoke of “recall” during the campaign last year, I hope that it still rings fresh in the party’s representatives. The opposition should also keep tabs on their representatives and withdraw those who fail to live up to expectations.
For now, it is still too early to say how things will turn out. They were only elected two months ago.
Interestingly, many have yet to start with their work.
If we want to avoid the scenes of protest, of young and old fed up with the running of local authorities, we need to move away from what have become failures - to give a well-deserved service to our people instead of own political gains.

Elections? What Elections?

NEXT month Namibians, relatively fresh from voting in last year’s presidential and national elections and still waiting for the outcome of a court challenge, will be expected to vote for new regional and local councillors. I would be surprised if even 35 per cent of the electorate turn up for voting!

There is hardly any mention, from any political party, of the elections that are six weeks away.
The regional council election is the only platform for voters to directly elect their representatives while the local authorities handle crucial issues such as the provision of water, electricity and other important services.
Therefore, the upcoming election is one of the main events on the 2010 calendar, especially since voters only get the chance once every five years.
Alas, the election seems to be the last thing on the minds of national politicians.
Their concern was about their seats in the National Assembly last year and that was why they campaigned for two years. Now they enjoy lucrative salaries ranging from N$35 000 upwards.
If you tune in to any radio station around the country, or watch any of the ads on television or in newspapers, you will notice the glaring absence of campaign material.
In contrast, the whole of last year was almost all about the things you probably thought elections should be about: job creation, provision of basic services, healthcare etc.
And when they ran out of ideas, last year’s campaign ended with name-calling, character assassination and threats of court cases between various parties, individuals and even against the media.
This year not even half a dozen public rallies have taken place. No one is looking to move the voters with slogans or advertisements.
This despite the fact that we have seen voting in the regional and local elections dwindling remarkably since 1992.
In 1992, when the first regional elections were held, the voter turnout was 81 per cent, but this decreased to just 40 per cent six years later in 1998 and 55 per cent in 2004.
Similarly the local authority elections attracted 82 per cent of voters in 1992 but the number dropped to an all-time low of 34 per cent in 1998. In 2004 it was at 44 per cent.
This can be compared to a more gradual drop from 97 per cent in 1989, to 76 per cent in 1994 and 61 per cent in 1999, for the National Assembly elections.
The drop in voter turnout was due in part to the failure of political parties to mobilise their supporters, but also voter dissatisfaction as well as confusion over registration cards and the constituencies in which people should vote.
At the current rate there is no evidence that even a 35 per cent voter turnout will happen on November 26 and 27.
In 2004 there was a pending court case, in which five opposition parties challenged the results, when voters had to go back to the polling stations for the local and regional elections. Again this time around, opposition parties have mounted a court challenge to contest the results of last year’s elections.
While it might be too early to diagnose the impact of the pending case on the November election, there are some voters who have already questioned the need to go back to the polls when they are still waiting the ‘final’ outcome of the previous election.
And who else is best qualified to encourage their supporters to vote, if it is not the political parties? Yet, some of the parties have gone into hibernation.
Gone are the ‘new media’ and other technologies used last year to canvass for votes. The websites of some of the parties were last updated in 2009!
All parties need to wake up, dust off their campaign material and get to the voters with bags full of promises, if they are to prevent major voter apathy.
And time is not on their side.
,

Swapo 2012 picking up

LET me cut to the chase. The race for Swapo’s 2012 congress has started interfering with the proper running of local authorities.

Some mayors are being ‘forced’ onto ratepayers and the electorate must come to terms with putting up with these people until the November elections change the status quo.
In all this, it has become crystal clear that one of the biggest challenges facing Swapo is the lack of consistency in how the leadership runs the party.
Some rules are only applied when it suits certain individuals and/or conveniently ignored when it does not suit the ruling class.
The recent changes, or attempted change of guard, at the local authorities of Rehoboth, Okahandja, Oshakati and Keetmanshoop are a case in point.
There is a party directive that no mayor must be removed at Swapo-led town councils because of the short time left before the November elections.
That is similar to the directive given last year that no regional councillor must stand for National Assembly elections because Swapo did not want by-elections.
It seems that those very same directives aimed at maintaining stability in the run-up to the November elections are under attack, while many of the members and leaders seem to be sleeping through it all.
While the leadership insist on the implementation of the directive in Keetmanshoop and are stopping former mayor Simon Petrus Tiboth from challenging Basil Brown for instance, the same directive was ignored in Rehoboth where mayor George Dax was removed and replaced with someone else.
Those who don’t want Tiboth are working with opposition councillors – people from different ideological trenches – to remove him, but he is accused of colluding with the opposition to work against ruling party directives.
Tiboth was removed from his mayoral position while there was a similar directive out not to oust him.
In Oshakati mayor Katrina Shimbulu retained her position only after the intervention of higher authorities.
Her fellow councillors did not want her but were instructed in no uncertain terms to re-elect her.
That is why she broke into tears when she was delivering her acceptance speech.
It is clear that those making the changes at local authority level aren’t alone.
Forces are at work and they are clearly preparing their way to the 2012 Swapo congress.
Swapo is a strange party and I expect some senior leaders will try to deny what I am writing about.
But in Swapo, one launches a campaign for the presidency or any other party position by denying that you are a contender!
One can also become a target of some ‘imperialist’ newspaper or a victim of a consistent racial attack by ‘Eurocentric’ people, and fellow comrades will fall for your ploy hook, line and sinker – meaning you will soon become a hero in the party.
Some serious nitpicking and mudslinging has already started emerging and the expectation is that the energy-sapping but useless fights will intensify in the run-up to the November elections.
Swapo is known for delivering the spine-chilling stuff as the race heats up!
The only hope is that the leadership will avoid the perennial problem of lack of consistency as they deal with the sifting or purging of cadres. Yes, that is what it is.
Councillors and other cadres who want to remain in their positions merely ensure that they are in favour with some leaders, even if they are corrupt or collaborating with the opposition! In the process, dishonesty and double standards take the front seat.
So what does the Swapo president think about all this? He ostensibly runs the party from State House while somebody else is in charge at the party headquarters!

* This column first appeared in The Namibian