By: Kelvin Chiringa
About 46 disgruntled delegates have put a gun to the head of National Youth Council (NYC) executive chairperson Sharonice Busch by ordering her to proceed with a meeting she cancelled due to Covid-19 positive tests among attendees, or else they drag her to court.
The meeting was scheduled for Swakopmund where, according to Busch, some 80 youth leaders from regions were expected to attend as provided for by the National Youth Council Act, Namibia’s Regional Youth Forums and NYC’s National Affiliates and Board Council.
However, Busch’s powers to postpone the meeting have been challenged by oneMbatjoroka Tjitemisa on behalf of 45 delegates, and they have roped in T.K Kaurivi Legal Practitioners.
Eagle FM has previously reported that Busch’s request that all delegates attending the meeting be subjected to mandatory Covid-19 testing before showing their faces in Swakopmund has been watered down as illegality.
She has been accused of fabricating misleading numbers of those that tested positive, with the delegates telling her in no uncertain terms that the numbers were a lie.
“The testing of delegates that was done was not constitutional in any way. The testing company used to test in Swakopmund is unknown to the delegates. The testers did not have any form of identification on their person.
“The test results that were conducted have not been communicated with the tested individuals but somehow ended up in the hands of the board. This greatly contradicts the right to privacy of the tested individual as per Chapter 3 article 13 of the Namibian Constitution,” they said.
The NYC divisions once again expose a youth structure that continues to run on shacky foundations ever since the chaotic rise to its helm by the one-time Statehouse employee, Busch.
Her number was unreachable when this paper sought her comment.
The ministry of sport, youth and national service, Audrin Mathe, has also said he is not aware of the meeting and referred all questions to Busch.
Busch Threatened with Court Action.
The NYC boss has been told to hold the meeting virtually, failure of which she will be sued and will have to bear the costs of an urgent application.
“We are instructed that on the 14th of December 2021, just one day prior to the meeting, you issued an unlawful memorandum to the members of the Representative Council. Our instructions are to the effect that your illegal memorandum informed all regional youth forum chairpersons that the National Youth Council has made Covid-19 testing mandatory for all delegates attending the RC due to be held in Swakopmund.
“We have instructions to inform you that any requirement to submit to a Covid-19 test was unlawful as any law does not sanction it. We are further instructed that on the 15th of December you issued a memorandum indicating that the RC meeting was cancelled due to a detection of positive cases of Covid-19. It is our instruction that you did not seek alternatives such as the holding of the meeting virtually. You simply cancelled the meeting,” said the lawyers.
