Erasmus Shalihaxwe
Despite Mobile Telecommunications (MTC) strongly denying any money missing from its coffers, the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), is insisting that N$1.2 billion of public funds were used to pay lawyers representing persons implicated in the fishrot scandal.
The party’s spokesperson Lifalaza Simataa, told Windhoek Observer yesterday that based on information the party received from the source, LPM has strong suspicion that MTC has a case to answer. Hence the party wants the line minister to provide clarity.
This comes after LPM leader Bernadus Swartbooi, questioned Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises Iipumbu Shiimi, in Parliament last week to provide answers on the alleged missing N$1.2 billion at MTC.
Swartbooi claimed that a system administrator detected the missing money and that it was used to pay for the legal services of lawyers representing fishrot suspects.
“This is a clear indication of the illegal use of public funds and even possible money laundering. Could the minister explain why a government parastatal is involved in financing the legal bill of high-profile individuals, if he is aware of such an operation being conducted from the pockets of taxpayers’ funds via MTC,” said Swartbooi.
Swartbooi further requested Shiimi to assure the nation that public funds are not used to pay for fishrot accused persons’ trials or any other senior government officials.
“Are you able to definitively state that taxpayers’ money at parastatals under your auspices are not used to finance the trials of the fishrot accused, or any other trials of any other high-ranking officials, nor for the payment of “hush” money to potential State witnesses with a view to undermine the State’s case against the accused persons?” questioned Swartbooi.
However, on the same day, MTC Chief Human Capital Tim Ekandjo, issued a statement strongly denying the allegations.
“We are completely shocked and dismayed by these false and defamatory allegations. We have been operating in Namibia for over 27 years, and we have always maintained the highest standard of integrity and professionalism – and there is absolutely no truth in these allegations whatsoever.
We thus firstly wish to thank honourable Swartbooi for posing the questions in such a respectful manner because we encourage openness and transparency at MTC at all times and we wish to assure him that his source had nothing but malicious intentions towards our brand, and as a listed entity, our financials are edited and readily and publicly available for public scrutiny,” said Ekandjo.
However, Simataa said LPM is concerned by the amount of money alleged to be missing, and given previous incidents where ministers used state-owned institutions that fall under their ministries to fund their activities, this might be the same case.
“We had such situations where S&Ts were awarded to ministers to go on certain functions and so forth. Therefore, we feel like if this is another situation where we have funding from an institution that the government partially owns for the agenda of certain people, then it’s a practice that people should know and it should be addressed immediately. We, therefore, stand by these allegations, we stand by these questions and we stand and wait for a response from the minister,” said Simataa.
He added that the party cannot reveal if the system administrator who made the discovery works within MTC or somewhere else because there is no law that protects whistleblowers in the country.
“We believe that for the protection of the individual, we will not divulge more information on who it is that gave us this information. Especially when there is no appropriate whistleblowing Act function within the country, even though it has been passed by Parliament but has not been enacted. It is therefore difficult for us to protect the whistleblower,” explained Simataa.
