• Government

City appoints assistants for ‘busy’ councillors

• 4 Months Ago - 2023-12-01 08:43:00

The City of Windhoek (CoW) has appointed assistants for 15 councillors who complained about not having sufficient time to attend to City affairs.
This follows a motion to the management committee for deliberation by Affirmative Repositioning Movement member Job Amupanda, who wanted councillors to be assigned research assistants to help them with the execution of their duties.
City spokesperson Harold Akwenye confirmed that provision had been made for the appointment of assistants.
“Council at its meeting of 27 July 2023 approved the assignment of Intern Research Assistants to all councillors,” Akwenye said.
According to Akwenye, the initiative’s primary objective serves to afford students and or young graduates experiential opportunity and practical exposure as a means to foster their capacity development and skills which would allow them to compete in the broader employment market.
The City has a database of students and young graduates that it could source personal assistants for the councillors from, Akwenye explained.
“The City of Windhoek has a comprehensive live database of students and young graduates from which suitable candidates are considered by the specific opportunities within Council's operations,” he said.
In other insistences, councillors were also allowed to find candidates that they felt suitable to their needs, Akwenye said.
“Councillors were equally allowed to source suitable students/young graduate's CV's in accordance to their intended research or project focal areas for consideration in the selection process,” he said.
Sufficient provision was made to pay for the remuneration of the assistants, he said.
A councillor who spoke to NMH indicated that only Amupanda and fellow Affirmative Repositioning councillor Ilse Keister had been assigned assistants thus far.
“Amupanda insisted we are too busy. We agreed to it, however, what we learned is that he and Keister already have people attached to them. We are still studying the merits and demerits,” the councillor indicated.