Maria Hamutenya and Andrew Kathindi
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has said its not investigating any allegations of corruption at the Defence Ministry, including allegations of a shady N$10 million hand sanitizer deal, as no one has come forth with information.
Windhoek Mayor Job Amupanda has raised various corruption allegations against Minister of Defence, Peter Vilho, including his alleged approval of a tender to supply the ministry with hand sanitiser worth N$10 million. ACC’s Director General, Paulus Noa, told Windhoek Observer that his office has not looked into the case.
“We are not aware of any allegations made towards the Minister of Defence, Peter Vilho, that he has allegedly been violating the procurement process.”
He added, “If you have information, or someone else has information regarding this corruption allegations, then they must give us details of what transpired, they must come to ACC and based on their affidavit they must stand for what they are alleging.”
Quizzed on whether the Police was aware of the matter, Inspector General of the Namibian Police, Sebastian Ndeitunga, also said he had no knowledge of the allegations. “I can’t remember of a case registered with the police that’s related to that. Nobody informed me. If a case has been registered at a particular police station, I’m not aware of it up to now. If he is saying the police were alerted, I don’t know how and when? By what? Formally, verbally? Or a case registered? I’m not aware.”
In light of numerous corruption scandals that have come to light over the past year, Ndeitunga argued that fighting corruption was not only the police’s duty but the Namibian society’s as a whole. “Corruption in society should not only be fought by the police. It should be fought by all of us. It’s not an issue about whether the police are doing enough. For the police, when a case is registered, we have a constitutional and legal obligation to properly investigate the case. If there is enough evidence the person is charged, if there is a need, the person is arrested and after the investigation the docket is sent to the Prosecutor General who will look at the evidence. And if there’s justification for the person to be prosecuted, the PG will decide and the case will be sent to court.”
Amupanda has exchanged words with the Defence minister through the media over the last couple of months.
“So, the Namibian police force has been alerted about more than 10 million sanitiser tender which corrupt Minister Peter Vilho corruptly gave to a biological child of his Defence right hand woman. As a defender of the corrupt elite Nampol has been sitting on the evidence,” he said on his social media platform.
