On Thursday, a document on an SSC letterhead that did not surface during the High Court inquiry into the N$30 million investment deal dominated proceedings in a bail application by Nico Josea in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court.

The letter is an exact replica - but with one crucial difference - of an SSC letter that formed part of the evidence in the Companies Act inquiry that acting High Court Judge Raymond Heathcote conducted into the investment deal.

If the new letter were to be genuine, it would place Namangol Investments in the central role that Avid Investment Corporation has so far played in the investment saga.

The letter is identical to one addressed to Avid to inform it that the SSC had decided to invest N$30 million with it for a four-month period at an interest rate of 14,65 per cent a year.

The only difference between the two letters is that the one is addressed to Avid Investment Corporation and marked for the attention of the chairperson of its board of directors, Inez Gâses, while the other was addressed to Namangol Investments and marked for the attention of Josea.

Both letters are dated January 21 2005.

After the SSC had transferred the N$30 million to Avid on January 26, to be invested for a four-month period, Avid again transferred N$29,5 million of that money to Josea's Namangol Investments, which in turn transferred N$20 million to a South Africa-based financial trader, Alan Rosenberg, who was supposed to invest the money - but never did, it is claimed.

Rosenberg however did transfer N$15 million back to Josea personally around the middle of March.

According to the SSC's version of the investment deal, its top management agreed in January to invest N$30 million with Avid, an unproven asset manager with its previous investment experience limited to having handled only one investment.

Josea, the only person facing criminal charges over the disappearance of the SSC's investment money, told Magistrate Sarel Jacobs that he had never seen the document before.

He said he regarded it as another sign that someone was plotting to implicate him and his asset management company, Namangol.

Also on Thursday the SSC's former Manager: Corporate Finance, Gideon Mulder, told the Magistrate that he, too, had never seen the letter and that he had also not signed it.

The only witness who knew about the letter was the SSC's lawyer, Rocco Kauta - but he in turn told the court that the Police had provided the letter to the SSC's lawyers, but he did not know where they had found it.

From the Police's side, Chief Inspector Willie Bampton, who is leading the criminal investigation of the disappearance of the SSC's money, could not shed light on the origin of the letter either.

He told the court on Friday that he found the document in the Police docket of the case when he took over the investigation in mid-September.

The SSC official whose name is given in the letter as the contact person for enquiries has told the Police that he did not know of the document, Bampton said.

No trace of it could be found either on Josea's personal computers that the Police had seized, he added.

The only explanation for the letter that he could think of was that someone was trying to form a plot against him, Josea told the court.

The only agreement that the SSC had for the N$30 million investment was with Avid, and not with Namangol Investments, Mulder added.

"It seems that somewhere something is wrong with these two documents," Josea's lawyer, André Louw, commented.

"That letter, you must ask the Police where they got it," was Kauta's remark when he testified.

Through Bampton, the Police were asked on Friday - but the question remains unanswered.

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