The Namibian Institute for Democracy will hold a fur day workshop in Swakopmund from 18 to 21 August next week. The aim is to provide a platform for all civil society development programme grantees throughout Namibia to share information with regard to their programmes, problem identification, and networking. Delegates will also make recommendations in the further strengthening of the CSDP network. The conference will be opened by Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab on Monday at the Alte Brücke conference centre.

The head of planning of the Hanseatic City of Bremen is visiting Windhoek this week. Bremen has a partnership with Bremen. Mr Thomas Lecke-Lopatta held technical discussions with his Windhoek counterparts and met urban planning students of the Polytechnic. A meeting with the Namibia Institute of Town and Regional Planning on Wednesday was open to the public. Trends on planning in Germany were discussed and what experiences could be used in Namibia. The Charters Project, which ties Windhoek and Bremen was signed in July 2000.

The former town clerk of Mariental, Thys Cronjé recently won his appeal court case against the Mariental Municipality, as his employment was terminated illegally. Cronjé is expected to get paid millions of dollars in severance including compensation for loss of income and benefits for the period March 2000 until such date that his services are terminated fairly. In addition, the Court further ordered the municipality of Mariental to pay the costs of both the Appeal Court case and the Labour Court case.

The DTA demands that those Swapo town councillors themselves, who were so eager to get rid of Cronjé, should cough up the money, not the residents and rate payers of Mariental. According to the chairperson of the DTA, Mr Johan de Waal, the town councillors were made aware of the unfair dismissal of Mr Cronjé, by DTA councillor Dr. Grobler, but would not listen to him. The DTA now expected the Swapo councillors to pay the former town clerk, because "they knowingly and against sound advice decided to get rid of Mr Cronjé."

The Namibian business community should forge trade links with their Zimbabwean counterparts in various sectors of the economy. This was urged by Karas regional councillor for the Lüderitz constituency, Mr Fluksman Samuehl, who this week returned from a visit to Zimbabwe. The trip was done for the Commonwealth parliamentary Association to fellow MP’s in Harare. Briefing media on Monday, Samuehl said, media reports on the situation in Zimbabwe were exaggerated, lacked analysis and superficial. The land reform programme was implemented with great speed in Zimbabwe, he said, without a proper legal framework and important issues were overlooked. However, indigenisation of the commercial agricultural sector in that country implied that more foreign currency would be invested in Zimbabwe, according to Samuehl. Accompanying him to Zimbabwe were CoD member Linus Chata who was not present during the press conference, Chief Justus Garoeb (UDF), and National Council member Johnny Hakaye.