Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The case of the residents of the Endobo hostel, who claimed President Hage Geingob knew of their eviction and the inhumane conditions the occupants were living in, was struck off the court roll yesterday.
According to High Court Judge Hosea Angula, the case which was filed in September last year has been inactive for more than six months.
Residents Thimbunga Andreas, Sosa Kamati, Fillip Louis, Moses Ndumba, and Shiputa Andreas were citing the President, the Municipality of Tsumeb, the Minister of Justice Minister of Urban and Rural Development, the Minister of Safety and Security, the Minister of Trade and Industry, the Registrar of Deeds, the Inspector General of the Namibian Police, the TCL Workers Committee, the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF), the Ombudsman, Endobo Properties, Christo Groenewald, The Workers Advice Centre, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Deputy Sheriff of Tsumeb and the Tsumeb Concerned group as the first to the seventeenth respondents.
The residents filed the case when in September last year after about 5 000 residents were evicted from the Endombo community’s old Tsumeb Corporation Limited (TCL) hostel building.
The residents were allegedly evicted by Groenewald, a former Goldfields manager of the TCL mine in Tsumeb.
According to court documents, the group was also claiming that Groenewald’s documentation proving ownership of the building was fraudulent. They also claimed that the President knew how Groenewald fraudulently claimed the building and how he charged rent illegally.
“The thirteenth respondent (Groenewald) does not own the Old TCL Hostel and is fraudulently extorting rent from the community,” read the documents.
The Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement last year also called on the Tsumeb municipality to take action against the residents who were evicted.
Groenewald rented out the Hostel to working families since 2002 after TCL went into liquidation in 1998.
The former TCL management with some trade unionists formed the company Ongopolo Mining and Processing Limited in 1999.
In 2000 the company obtained a court order from the High Court to take over all the assets of the TCL for N$57 million, N$40 million from the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF), and N$17 million from the TCL miners’ pension fund.
However, in 2008 Endobo Hostel was proclaimed as part of the township of Tsumeb, but there were no compliance certificates issued and approved plan or layout, in terms of the Local Authorities laws and regulations it was not habitable because it did not comply with inspections.
“The hostel in question has no approved municipal plans, no compliance certificate, and is not designated as habitable in terms of the relevant legislation and building regulations. In does not exist in law,” the document reads.
