•  December 2000February 2001 Local News Headlines

Thursday, February 22, 2001 - Web posted at 7:18:17 AM GMT

Defence swindle snowballs
WERNER MENGES

THE extent of the death benefits scam at the Ministry of Defence continued to widen yesterday with the appearance in court of five new suspects.

The 18 people so far charged with fraud, alternatively theft, of some N$1,4 million, could not all fit into a crowded dock in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court in Luederitz Street when they appeared before Magistrate P Husselmann yesterday.

According to the Police their numbers, and also the amount of money suspected to have been fleeced from insurance companies paying out death benefits for deceased NDF members, could still continue to rise as the investigation into the alleged scam continues.

The five newly-arrested suspects - Keetmanshoop NBC reporter Cell Nkuvi (46), a senior clerk at Air Namibia, Reino Ipundjwa Kauma (41), Namibia Defence Force members Theophilus Major Ikwambi (32) and Elizabeth Thomas Nangombe (34), and a Windhoek nurse, Theresia Kavindja (47) - were granted bail of N$10 000 each yesterday.

Twelve of their previously arrested co-accused have also been granted bail of N$10 000 each.

The suspected main actor in the alleged fraud scheme, Defence Ministry personnel officer Emmanuel Kapumba Mununga (41), remains free on bail of N$50 000.

He was released on December 27 last year, after he had spent almost two weeks in custody following his arrest on December 14.

Police spokesman Chief Inspector Hophni Hamufungu said yesterday that the Police could not rule out the possibility of more arrests or that the amount of money involved would rise.

He indicated that it was thought that Mununga, also a businessman in the Rundu area, ran the fraud scheme by claiming death benefit pay-outs for NDF members who had not died but had only left the military.

Mununga allegedly channelled the money for the falsely claimed death benefits between January 1998 and December 2000 through the bank accounts of relatives and acquaintances, who are now his 17 co-accused.

The 17 also include two of Mununga's brothers-in law, 30-year-old NBC radio DJ Mathew Haimbili Hamutenya ('DJ Bloomy'), and Vilho Kudumo Hamutenya (28), and a nephew of Mununga, Joseph Kandjele Likoro (26).

The other suspects are NDF members Pius Kahongo (36), Michael Manfred Haikera (36) and Ester Shadjanale (34), teacher Frieda Nauyala (34), Windhoek student Basilius Makoto Dyakugha (37), medical technician Leonard Likuwa Kandjimi (37), personnel officer Elifas Mangundu Dingara (36), data typist Roswitha Numbu Haingura (26) and Banda Shilimeya (29).

The 18 have to appear in court again on April 20.

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