Bank accounts frozen over RFA refund fraud

A CASE in which the Prosecutor General has used the Prevention of Organised Crime Act to in effect have two bank accounts frozen has lifted the lid on an alleged scam in which the Road Fund Administration stood to lose close to N$2,5 million.

Prosecutor General Martha Imalwa has obtained a High Court order in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act to preserve the money in two bank accounts of people alleged to have been involved in fraud or theft which was discovered at the RFA in late April.One of the accounts is in the name of an RFA employee who is alleged to have received N$192 000 from an account into which fuel levy refunds that had been fraudulently claimed from the RFA had been paid.According to Imalwa, evidence collected during a Police investigation shows that a fictitious client had been created on the RFA’s computer system on March 28 this year.The client was created with the use of a computer access code which only information technology administrators at the RFA had access to, Imalwa informed the court.RFA employee Diaz Shipandeka was the only IT administrator at the time that the fictitious account was created, she claimed.Also on March 28, five transactions in which large amounts of money were paid to the fictitious client, supposedly as fuel levy refunds, were made from an RFA bank account, she informed the court. The RFA employee who, according to the computer system, approved those payments, was actually on leave on that date, Imalwa said.According to that employee, she had in the past given her computer password to the RFA’s computer system administrator.With the five transactions on March 28, a total amount of more than N$2,49 million was transferred to the bank account of one M.S. Blom, the Police have established.A cheque of N$190 000 which was drawn on that account was deposited into the bank account of Shipandeka on April 14, Imalwa related. The previous day, N$2 000 had also been deposited into his account, with the reference ‘M.S. Blom’ given with that deposit, she stated.There are reasonable grounds to believe that Shipandeka fraudulently created a fictitious fuel levy claimant, and that the other account holder assisted him to commit fraud or theft against the RFA, Imalwa claimed in an affidavit filed with the court.By the time that the suspected fraud or theft was discovered, there was about N$30 000 left in Shipandeka’s account, Imalwa said. In the other account, which had been frozen by Standard Bank Namibia, there was about N$2,1 million left.Imalwa told the court that in her view the money in the two bank accounts is the proceeds of unlawful activities, namely fraud, theft or money laundering.The Police are still investigating a criminal case, the court was also informed.