Namugongo used his position as Deputy Director and head of the Division: Gambling, Casinos and Lotteries in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to pocket a payment of N$25 000 in June 2006 for processing an application for a gambling house licence, the prosecution is charging in the first of 12 counts to which Namugongo pleaded before Magistrate Sarel Jacobs.

Namugongo accepted that gambling house licence application, and the accompanying payment, at a time that he knew that there was a moratorium on the issuing of new gambling licences in Namibia, the prosecuting is alleging.

In terms of the embargo no applications for such licences were to be accepted, issued, and no fees received by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the prosecution further charges.

"I plead not guilty, my honour," was Namugongo's response to the allegations against him in the first charge.

In an alternative to the first count of corruption, the State charges that Namugongo committed theft by taking N$25 000 from a gambling licence applicant, Petrus Shambo, in June 2006.

"I plead not guilty, my lord," was Namugongo's response to that charge.

This was a phrase that Namugongo (56) was to repeat another 28 times as Deputy Prosecutor-General Orben Sibeya continued to read out each of the first 12 charges, as well as alternative charges under the main counts of corruption and fraud, that Namugongo is facing at his trial.

To a charge that he had committed fraud by posing to Shambo that he was entitled to receive and process an application for a gambling licence, and that he then in exchange for a payment of N$25 000 issued to Shambo a letter acknowledging receipt of an application for a gambling house licence and allowing Shambo to start operating gambling machines, while he knew that the issued letter was false and not authorised, Namugongo responded: "I plead not guilty, my lord."

That was also his response to two alternative charges of forgery and uttering under the fraud charge.

And it was his response to a further five sets of similar charges - each consisting of main counts of corruption and fraud, and alternative charges of theft and of forgery and uttering respectively - that were put to him before the court adjourned until this morning, when Namugongo is set to continue giving his plea to a remaining 28 charges he faces.

In all, Namugongo is charged with 20 main counts of corruption and 20 main counts of fraud.

The charges had numbered 46 before Sibeya withdrew four of them at the start of proceedings before Magistrate Jacobs yesterday, with another two counts set to be formally withdrawn today.

The charges involve 18 people who are alleged to have made payments to Namugongo in return for being issued with gambling licences at a time that a moratorium on the issue of such licences is claimed to have been in force.

These payments were allegedly made between March 2006 and September 11 2006 - the last having been six days before Namugongo's arrest by investigators of the Anti-Corruption Commission.

In terms of the 40 charges remaining against Namugongo, the prosecution is alleging that he had corruptly received payments totalling N$365 000 - in single payments as low as N$6 500 and as high as N$60 000 - from gambling licence applicants from March to September 2006.

Sibeya had only completed reading out the first corruption charge to the court yesterday before a question from defence lawyer Titus Mbaeva, asking whether the prosecution was going to produce licences referred to in the charge during the trial.

This prompted Sibeya to ask for an amendment to all the corruption and fraud charges in order to include references to "purported" gambling licences in the charges.

These amendments led to an adjournment of the case to the afternoon, when Mbaeva again queried whether the prosecution would be making use of the alleged forged letters acknowledging gambling licence applications that are claimed to have been received and processed by Namugongo.

Mbaeva told the court that such documents had not been disclosed to the defence.

After Magistrate Jacobs made a brief ruling that this was an issue that would form part of the evidence in the trial, and that it was not a ground for objecting to the charges, Sibeya was finally able to start putting the charges to Namugongo.

He is set to continue with this exercise when the starting phase of the trial continues today.

Namugongo is free on bail of N$20 000.

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