Land deals must be investigated –

Cllr Knowledge Ipinge steps up his search for the municipality’s
“missing millions”

With less than three weeks to go before the Regional Councils and Local Authorities Elections take place on 25 November, the heat is turned up under the municipality of Walvis Bay to suspend, investigate and bring to the book municipal staff members linked to alleged corrupt land deals.

The Regional Councillor for the Walvis Bay Urban Constituency, Cllr Knowledge Ipinge, yesterday led a delegation to the civic centre in Walvis Bay to deliver a petition against what he termed “corruption and poor service delivery within the Walvis Bay municipality”.
Cllr Ipinge in particular wants answers over an alleged “disappearance” of N$24 million from the Massive Land Servicing Project”.
Cllr Ipinge says it is inadequate answers so far over this N$24 million why the Erongo Regional Council at its last meeting refused to adopt the Walvis Bay municipality’s audited financial statements for the financial year ending 30 June 2018.
Ipinge in the strongest terms rejected claims by the municipality’s CEO, Muronga Haingura, that the funds were in a suspense account of the local authority and that it is currently being reconciled.
Equally Ipinge questions why the mayor of Walvis Bay, Alderman Immanuel Wilfried did not keep his promise to call a meeting where the missing millions would be explained. Further-more, Haingura is roasted for his explanation to a national newspaper that “banking errors” caused the millions not featuring on the financial system.
Cllr Ipinge further called for the immediate suspension of the Property Manager of the Walvis Bay municipality, Jack Manale, for a recon-ciliation sheet he provided to the Regional Council over the missing millions. Cllr Ipinge described the reconciliation sheet as “dubious” and “leaving more questions than answers”.
Ipinge called for a forensic audit into all land deals in Walvis Bay the past years under the watch of successive Swapo local authority councils. He called for the suspension of officials who could have involved themselves in underhand dealings with Walvis Bay’s lucrative urban land.
The delegation that arrived at the civic centre yesterday to hand over the petition were greeted with a “no show” of any official to receive the petition on behalf of the municipality. The group were stopped by the Namibian Police from entering the civic centre, to search for an official who could receive the petition.
The group hoped for the CEO Muronga Haingura to receive the petition. The CEO was however, out of the office to attend a gathering at the Twaloloka informal settlement with the Minister of Urban and Local Development, Erastus Uutoni.