Not The First Time
THE spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Selma Kambala, should have consulted senior officials in that ministry including the permanent secretary before misleading the nation that nothing similar to what happened to Deputy Prosecutor General Verhoef had occurred in the past.
I personally know of two similar cases. One was last year when a promising young police officer was detained in Moscow for several hours as her Namibian passport when scanned portrayed the face and identity of a another person – a light skinned child with dreadlocks. She was deported and could not attend a very important course she was nominated to attend in Russia. She ended up being traumatised and if it was not because the advice received from her colleagues she could have sued the ministry.
The best thing the ministry could do is to properly investigate these cases and rectify the blunders. In this case I referred to the ministry’s IT person was brought in and insisted it was a technical error with the machine and when the child’s image was captured someone forgot to erase it for the next shoot. Home Affairs must be serious with these issues. Imagine yourself in that embarrassing situation being arrested in a foreign country because of someone paid by the taxpayer’s incompetence!
Anon
Windhoek