Uis residents vow to stay put until chief is removed

The community members of Uis in the Erongo region have vowed to remain on the premises of the Dâure Daman Traditional Authority until Gaob Sagarias Seibeb has been removed from the chieftainship.

Their spokesperson, Cornelia Atjiwara, says community members are aggrieved as the chief and his leaders are allegedly the only ones benefitting from deals made with Chinese nationals regarding the area’s natural resources, while community members live in poverty.

Atjiwara says community members are demanding that the chief and his daughter be removed from office so that they can elect a leader of their choice.

“Our main concern is the lack of progress at Uis since the chief’s coronation in 2018. The settlement has seen no infrastructural or economic development, making us dissatisfied with the chief’s leadership and governance,” she says.

This comes despite a court order secured by Seibeb to remove protestors – senior citizens among them – and the arrest of the group’s chairperson, Jimmy /Areseb, by the Namibian Police’s Special Reserve Force last week.

Anmire Dâusas, a community member, alleges that the community is aware of irregularities in how Chinese mining company Xinfeng was granted exclusive prospecting licences.

They accuse Seibeb and his family of receiving multiple payments, totalling N$10 000, to facilitate the company’s mining rights in the area.

“These payments were made into a NamPost account and not the traditional authority’s trust fund. The chief and his leaders are only there to promote nepotism, and self-enrichment. There is also no transparency and that is why we have been raising our concerns since 2021 and repeatedly called for chief Seibeb’s removal following a community vote of no confidence.”

“Seibeb must remember that he was not placed as chief by the courts or police but by the community,” says Dâusas. “The same community is now asking to meet with him, but he is nowhere to be found and instead sends the police after us.”

Another resident, Gregory Huseb, says even with the green hydrogen pilot project, the residents feel excluded as there is no consultation with the community, and that the traditional authority single-handedly handed over land for the Dâures Green Hydrogen Pilot project. “That land is the breeding grounds of the wildlife in the Dâures constituency from where the community was making a living,” he says. Huseb is a member of the Tsiseb conservancy management committee.

He says out of the 200 jobs that were available during the construction of the pilot project, only eight or ten people from Uis were employed. Out of the Dâures constituency, he says maybe 80 locals received jobs.

Chief Seibeb has denied these claims of secrecy, nepotism and self-enrichment.

“I do not do projects for myself, it is for the people. So why should I do these things in secret. These people come to our offices and receive help with consent letters and claim forms but then turn around and say this office is useless.”

“Nowadays, we have people going on social media to stop people from attending community meetings.

“This same group of people demonstrated, saying there is illegal mining among small miners. The buyers that used to buy from the locals used to pay them for 10kg of semi-precious stones and people had money every Friday. Now the buyers have withdrawn and the people are crying about hunger,” says the chief.

He says the NamPost account cited in the allegations belongs to the traditional authority and is used for operational expenses.

“I am not a signatory to any of the authority’s accounts.

And I am not avoiding meeting these people and addressing their grievances as I have been addressing the concerns through the relevant government minister,” says Seibeb. /Areseb has been granted bail of N$2 000 by Omaruru magistrate Asi Gariseb following his arrest on Saturday, with a bail condition to stay away from the Dâure Daman Traditional Authority office until the matter is finalised. Magistrate Gariseb postponed the case to 25 February to allow for further police investigations.