Rabbits divide LPM councillors

Regional councillors representing the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) at the Hardap Regional Council are at odds with each other after the council bought 120 rabbits – allegedly without a council resolution.

The party has six councillors on the regional council.

One of the councillors, Harald Kumbrude, says the rabbits were bought from Cadema Farming last February.

Cadema farming is owned by LPM women’s league leader Margreth du Toit and her husband, Deon, from Rehoboth.

Kambrude on Monday said the purchase followed a presentation by Cadema Farming representatives to the council on 6 October 2021.
FEEDING HARDAP RESIDENTS

“They made a presentation to the council that they could help us feed Hardap residents with high-protein meat from rabbits,” Kambrude said.

He said during the presentation, Cadema Farming proposed a fee of N$250 per rabbit and N$6 per cage.

Subsequently, the council bought the rabbits, but so far only 38 have been delivered, he said.

Kambrude said the decision to buy the rabbits for N$100 000 was made by the chairperson of the Hardap Regional Council, Gershon Dausab and members of the council’s management committee.

Kambrude said he only learnt about the rabbit purchase through gossip.

“Someone said you guys [councillors] decided to pay Cadema Farming close to N$100 000 for rabbits. But I said no, we never took a resolution on that,” he said.

Kambrude said he then confirmed the payment to Cadema Farming with acting chief regional officer Julian Engelbrecht.

He then reported the matter to the minister of urban and rural development, Erastus Uutoni and it was later passed on to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), he said.

ACC director general Paulus Noa this week said he could not remember this specific case.

“I could only confirm that if I was in front of my computer,” he said.

Dausab declined to comment on the matter yesterday, saying it is under investigation.

‘NONSENSE’

Asked about the matter yesterday, Cadema Farming owner Deon du Toit said Kambrude was “talking nonsense”.

He said the project was approved by the regional council, including Kambrude, in January 2022.

Du Toit said he made a presentation to the Hardap Regional Council at Mariental in 2021.

He said he wanted to produce the rabbits for the export market and to employ a lot of people.

“The project was called ‘Feed the Nation’,” he said.

“I gave him the project and he did nothing,” he said.

Du Toit said he kept the rabbits despite not having enough space or money to feed them.

He had been telling the regional council to collect the rabbits for 11 months, without success, he said.
Some 19 rabbits died and Du Toit has so far delivered 38.

He will give the council another 40 rabbits, he said.

Du Toit said the regional council paid him N$98 000, including feed and cages.

According to him, each rabbit was sold to the council for N$350.

Magreth du Toit said Kambrude has not been doing his work in the constituency.

“Maybe he is afraid they will give his position to me,” she said this week.

She denied any conflict of interest, despite belonging to the LPM.

FOOTBALL

Kambrude claimed that the council discussed an application for a donation or request for a donation from the Hardap Regional Football Association of N$80 000 in September 2022.

“Then Gershon Dausab read everything in the minutes and it read that the association needed N$400 000, but they only requested N$80 000 from the council.

“Honourable [Salomon] Boois proposed that the finance department of the council can make a presentation to the council on this money. Honourable [Nicodemus] Motinga seconded that. Without doing that, a resolution was taken to pay N$80 000,” he said.

Kambrude said the resolution was changed from N$80 000 to N$250 000 during a subsequent council meeting in October.

“My question was: Where is that N$170 000 going? They could not answer. Fortunately, finance refused to pay N$170 000. They only paid N$80 000,” he said.

Kambrude said during the meeting, he asked how the resolution was changed.

“The chairperson explained. I told him I am not satisfied with his explanation, because it does not clarify the whole issue for me,” he said.

Kambrude said he and Dausab argued, upon which the meeting was cancelled.

Following this incident, the LPM councillors had a meeting at the head office, he says.
“I was not called to state my side,” he said.

Engelbrecht yesterday promised to provide a formal response next week.