By: Justicia Shipena
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Hendrick Muisoor, at the Witvlei Village Council is under fire after workers resigned from the council due to alleged unethical practices.
The resignations will now be followed by a peaceful demonstration on Thursday against the village council.
An association styling itself as Voice of the Voiceless is accusing the village council of being corrupt.
The group claims that the village council has been running without a management committee and that the CEO of the village is dishing out plots to his close friends.
“We are planning a peaceful demonstration on Thursday morning, and we will close down the village council office until all irregularities are sorted,” a member of the Voice of the Voiceless said.
In 2020, the same group protested at the village council over poor service delivery.
Amongst the grievances, the members accuse Muisoor of running the village council like ‘a bar’.
“He is running the council like a bar. There are corrupt activities whereby the budget given by the government is misused. He never did anything in the past ten years. That is why the community decided to hold a peaceful demonstration to close the office until the office is audited. We want to confiscate three laptops so we can hand them over to the police.”
According to the chairman of Voice of the Voiceless, Whitey Hoebeb, the community started having issues since the appointment of Muisoor.
He claims Muisoor is not transparent in his work.
“His administration is poor. There is nothing he has achieved while in office. He never advertised tenders, and he hand picks those in his favour to take them up,” he said.
Muisoor’s term in office ends in September this year.
“He does not want to work together with the development committee. He refused for one to be established. He manipulates the councillors on issues of maladministration. The HR, as the technical officer, also resigned, and they all complained about him. He would travel on personal accounts and claim on the ticket of the village council. The village council must repair things on account of the council,” said Hoebeb.
Voice of the Voiceless also claims that Muisoor uses divide and rule tactics at the office.
An ex-employee at the village council told The Villager that he resigned because he was told to do work unethically.
“At the village council there is a lot of mismanagement. Councillors are diverting into our administration, whereby we don’t work on our maintenance plans. Councillors will pop up at the office daily, giving us things out of our line.”
He expressed that it frustrated him; hence he decided to leave, adding that there is no control at the village council.
Brian (not his real name) worked for the council for three years and seven months before he parted ways.
“They would make me make payments for a job card for causal to be paid. Another issue is they would use cars for trips with families. When I came there, it was organised, but when we got new councillors, everything got out of hand in 2019,” Brian narrates.
Muisoor has in the meantime refuted the allegations against him, adding that he had no power over the sale of plots.
“I have got no power to sell anything.”
In 2018, the Witvlei Village Council failed to present supporting documents accounting for N$4 million to Auditor General, Junias Kandjeke, for the 2016/17 financial year.
At that time, an amount of N$200 000 for the provision of leave disclosed on the financial statement could also not be verified.
The report revealed that there is no fixed assets register, so an amount of N$107 000 could not be verified.
Furthermore, employees of the village council, except the former CEO, strangely did not have employment contracts.
At the same time, travel allowance claims were also not submitted after trips, and some journeys are not supported by invitations.
