Pohamba’s silence questioned

By: WERNER MENGES

THE Public Service Commission (PSC) does not have any document in its files indicating that Namibia’s President has ever given his consent to members of the commission to do paid work besides their official position, PSC Chairperson Eddie Amkongo revealed in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

“None,” was Amkongo’s reply when he was asked by defence lawyer Sisa Namandje whether the Public Service Commission has any record of the present or previous President having given consent, in writing, to any public service commissioner to engage in paid work outside the duties of their office.
Amkongo gave the same answer when Namandje asked him if he knew of any consent having been given in any other shape by the President.
Amkongo was the fourteenth prosecution witness to testify in the trial of Lameck (52), her business partner, Kongo Mokaxwa (34), and a Chinese associate of theirs, Yang Fan (42), before Acting Judge Maphios Cheda.
After 17 days of proceedings in court the first session of their trial came to an end yesterday. The trial is scheduled to continue from 12 August to 13 September.
One of the questions which was discussed, and ultimately disagreed about, during Amkongo’s testimony was whether silence from the President would mean yes, or if it should be taken as meaning no.
“My interpretation, when I don’t receive a response (from the President), I take it as a no,” Amkongo said.
Namandje, though, suggested that the absence of a response from the President should be an indication that he does not have a problem with something which was brought under his attention.
Namandje told Amkongo that his instructions from Lameck were that up to yesterday the President has never given an indication to her that he has any problems with the fact that she was involved in other paid work besides her official position with the Public Service Commission.
One of the charges being faced by Lameck is a charge under the Anti Corruption Act, in which the prosecution is alleging that while she was holding a position as a member of the Public Service Commission she also performed other remunerative work outside the duties of her office without the consent of the President.
It is being alleged that in terms of the Public Service Commission Act Lameck was not allowed to perform paid work outside the duties of her office without the consent of the President.
The prosecution is also alleging that Lameck set up a close corporation, Teko Trading CC, with Mokaxwa without the President’s consent, and that she then corruptly solicited or agreed to receive gratification in the form of a payment of US$12,8 million (about N$130 million) from a Chinese company, Nuctech, which was supplying security scanning equipment to the Ministry of Finance at a price of US$55,3 million (N$477,6 million). The price of the equipment is alleged to have been inflated to enable the Chinese company to make the US$12,8 million payment to Teko Trading, with about N$42 million actually transferred by Nuctech to Teko Trading’s bank account, and then shared by Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang, in March 2009.
Amkongo testified that the Public Service Commission Act’s stipulation that members of the PSC must not be engaged in other paid work without the President’s consent was pointed out to public service commissioners at a meeting on 10 March 2008.
Lameck made a declaration of her outside interests – these included serving as a director of the Road Fund Administration, Namdeb, and Namib Contract Haulage, and having an interest in Teko Trading CC – to the President in a letter dated 11 December 2008, the court heard.
She did not specifically request the President’s consent in that letter.
Lameck never received an answer from the President on that letter, Namandje said.
Amkongo told the judge he was invited to a meeting with President Hifikepunye Pohamba before the President decided to suspend Lameck from her position in mid-August 2009. At that meeting the President told him that he was seeing the December 2008 letter from Lameck for the first time, Amkongo said.
Lameck remained on leave from her post, and continued receiving her pay, for three years, until her term as a commissioner came to an end in October last year.

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