Diplomatic bungles became the order of the day at the just concluded presidential
inauguration, when slay queens hijacked the event, leaving some international delegates without seats, while some local VIPs were also left stranded.
Confidente was reliably informed by some organising committee officials that some lead organisers invited their concubines, girlfriends and people who were
not invited with VVIP tickets, leaving the invited guests stranded.
Chaos ensued when the eleventh hour decision to change event venues from the Independence stadium, with its capacity to carry hordes of people, to the State
House, purportedly citing heavy rains that was experienced earlier
in the week. The warning from the organizing
turned out to be a false alarm with minimal to no rain experienced across Windhoek on the inauguration day, contrary to the statement issued on Thursday evening by the Executive Director in the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Audrin Mathe. Mathe announced the; “35th Independence celebration and inauguration of the fifth president of the republic of Namibia has been moved to State House. Therefore
these events will no longer take place at the Independence stadium as originally planned. This is due to extreme weather conditions that are forecasted for tomorrow.” “Due to limited space and number of international visitors, including heads of state and governments, the public will not be able to physically attend the 35th Independence celebrations and inauguration of Her Excellency Dr Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as Namibia’s fifth president as anticipated.” However, Mathe urged the public to observe this historic event through the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) television and radio services and other social
media platforms. RUINED THE DAY Swapo Secretary General, Sophia Shaningwa is on record after the event, fingering poor logistical arrangements as having ruined the event, ‘when hundreds of Namibians were thrilled to witness the inauguration of their first female President.’ Sources at the Swapo head office were also furious with the MICT and the event organisers for having called off the 30 municipal
buses that were supposed to transport the well wishers and citizens to their celebratory moment with President Nandi-Ndaitwah. Queried on why the buses were called off, Mathe initially told Confidente that, being government
assets, these buses were returned to the government garage in Windhoek, while those belonging to the municipality were sent back to municipal storage.This
change of venue resulted in there nobody to distribute the food that
was earmarked for the festivities to the people. Confidente learned that Shaningwa was prompted to distribute the food to the public at the Khomas Regional Council’s offices. This was also corroborated by
Mathe.

 DIPLOMATIC VOES Confidente has reliably learned from diplomatic sources that the Chinese delegation to the event boycotted the food, expressing their discontent for being seated next to the leaders of the former official opposition party, the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) of Namibia. “We came here as a quest of the Swapo Party and not to be seated with a rival party,” said one of the delegates who asked not to be named. Similarly, the American delegates were also allegedly irritated after they were grouped alongside the Venezuelan delegation. The United States government and the Venezuela Republic have
had diplomatic relations that can be described as sour at best. For years now, the US has had limited engagements with the Venezuelan government subject to sanctions that were imposed by the US on Venezuela since the years of Hugo
Chaves. Since the election of Hugo Chávez in 1999, relations between Venezuela and the United States deteriorated markedly, and continued to worsen after the election of George W. Bush, as Chávez became highly critical of the U.S. economic and foreign policy. It goes without saying that the US and Venezuela have been at
odds with each other diplomatically with the ascendance of President Donald Trump’s administration to power and its recognition of Juan Guaidó who declared himself Venezuela’s president in 2019. Cabinet Secretary, who was the event’s chief organizer, on Sunday, failed to reply to questions sent by Confidente before going to press. Simataa initially said that he will respond upon receiving reports
from the various subcommittees. “Surely you cannot expect me to answer these questions today. I will need to receive reports from chairpersons of various subcommittees to answer your questions. That can only happen after a post
mortem meeting that could take place during the coming week,” Simataa
said. Questions sent to the Chinese and American embassies for comment
were also unanswered. “We will definitely respond today,” a US embassy official said on Wednesday. “We have received the questions and our seniors are going to revert with the answers,” an employee at the Chinese embassy said.