Peya Mushelenga


Samuel Abraham Peyavali "Peya" Mushelenga is a Namibian politician and poet. A member of SWAPO, Mushelenga has been a member of the National Assembly of Namibia since 2005.
He has held ministerial positions in Hage Geingob's government, as the Minister of Urban and Rural Development since his appointment from February 2018 to March 2020 and the Minister of Information and Communication Technologies from March 2020 to present.

Early life and education

Peya Mushelenga was born at Oshigambo in the Oshikoto Region of northern Namibia. He attended Oluno Senior Secondary School until 1992 and then entered the University of Namibia. A holder of 10 university degrees, he attained a BA in History and Political Studies at UNAM in 1995, a B Juris in 2011, a LLB in 2014, and a LLM in 2017. In parallel he studied at the Open University of Tanzania, where he obtained the BA in Economics in 2017, B Ed in 2019, and at UNISA where he obtained a BA Honours and an MA in International Politics in 1997 and 2009, respectively, and a D Litt et Phil in 2015. He further studied at the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute, where he obtained the Master of Business Administration in 2018 with a meritorious award of Best Performer for Namibia’s class of 2018. In addition he is an admitted Legal Practitioner of the High Court of Namibia.
After his first degree at UNAM Mushelenga worked as teacher at Nehale Senior Secondary School in 1996. He then worked for Government until 1998, and thereafter joined NamPower.

Political career

He became active in the Namibia National Students Organisation in the 1980s and eventually became a high-level organizer for the SWAPO Party Youth League, being elected to the Central Committee and National Executive of the SPYL in 1997 and 2002. He had recently led the big delegation of 250 SWAPO Party Youth League leaders to Sochi Russia, to attend the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students, the event organized by World Federation of Democratic Youth WFDY and the Russian government. Also in 2002, he was elected to the SWAPO Central Committee as its youngest member.
Mushelenga became a member of Parliament of Namibia in 2005. In 2010 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In a major cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to Minister of Urban and Rural Development on 8 February 2018.. On 21 March 2020, Mushelenga was appointed Minister of Information and Communications Technology.

Personal

In 1980, South African security forces killed Mushelenga's sister and injured other relatives during a raid on their family home in the former bantustan of Ovamboland. A book of poetry entitled "Nando Na Li Toke", written in the Ovambo dialect of Ndonga, was published by Gamsberg MacMillan in 1996.