Update on courtcase against Daycare owner Belinda //Ga­roës

In 2013 Belinda //Ga­roës, owner of a daycare center for poor children in a suburb of Okahandja, Namibia, was incarcerated on several criminal charges following an eviction order. Read more about that in "City Councils Vendetta against owner of Day-Care center in Okahandja" and here about my day in court with her.

I somehow lost contact with Belinda after that day until 14th February 2015, when she suddenly turned up again, telling me about the pending trial date on Monday, 16th February. This time she showed me the stack of documents she had received - transcriptions of all previous hearings.
While going through those transcripts I found the one pertaining to the trial date, which was eventually set for 16 February 2015 in a hearing in August 2014. Right up until that time she had not received any disclosure documents. In the August hearing the magistrate ordered that she had a right to those documents and that she should apply to receive them. When i asked her about that, she told me she had followed the order and personally handed in the application, without making a copy of it, however.  Oops, a grave mistake. 

When I asked her for the disclosure documents, she pointed to the documents in my hand, telling me that is what she received on February 13 at the court offices.  Oh poor woman! But how was she to know? So her only option was to once again ask for the disclosure documents at the start of Mondays proceedings.

Well, today during lunchtime Belinda came to report about the proceedings. Apparently the prosecutor, right at the start of the  hearing, told the magistrate that she hadn't yet handed out the disclosure documents to Belinda, but would do so at 16h00. So the trial date was once again postponed to the 4th of June 2015 and Belinda is as happy as can come.

I haven't yet heard if she did in fact receive disclosure today. Will post another update if and when I hear from the lady again. 

Update 17/2/2015: She did not get the disclosure documents yesterday because they now charge for those(illegally as I found out), and she of course had no money to pay for them.







  

Tribalism becomes new excuse to avoid responsibility in Okahandja.

Since 2014 the inhabitants of Okahandja have been trying to call their local councilors to account for their neglect of duty.
In October 2014 the following Notice was handed to the then CEO in a meeting in his office.

NOTICE TO OKAHANDJA MUNICIPALITY

We, the undersigned people, inhabitants of Okahandja, herewith wish and require you, the councillors of Okahandja, to immediately attend to the following social concerns:

1.  Streetlights in almost all suburbs have not been attended to for more than six months now.                 
This endangers everybody in the community who has to use the streets coming home from work or going to work and school in the dark.

2.  Potholes in the streets do not get repaired timely.
These endanger the lives of pedestrians as well as drivers, as drivers try to evade the potholes to prevent damaging their vehicles.

3.  Refuse removal in certain areas is neglected, mostly in those areas where there are many children.                This poses a big health risk to anybody living in those areas.

Neglect of Duties:

Our Constitution clearly requires you to regard yourselves as servants of the people. According to the Local Authorities Act I 11.(5)(e) it is your duty  to promote and create the social well being of the inhabitants. We believe that you are grossly neglecting your duties in a way that may cause harm, endangering the lives of we, the inhabitants of Okahandja. This is a violation of our Constitution and your oath of office.

Measures in case of non compliance

We the people concerned thus have the right to take the necessary measures to protect ourselves from potential harm. Unless we see an immediate improvement of municipal services without increased costs, we will be required to take every lawful action to hold you to account to rectify the situation.
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To date nothing has been done about that, neither was anything done about the very hazardous and life endangering electric connections in certain townships, as exposed here.

So, after various more fruitless meetings with the mayor and some of the councilors, the inhabitants of the town decided to peacefully occupy the premises of the city council to call for the resignation of council, but were forcibly removed by the police. They now camp opposite the municipal offices on a private property, with the permission of the owner of that property.

Now the ball is thrown around once more amid allegations of self-enrichment and tribalism, with no solution in sight.