Bank records detail flow of money into Sackey’s accounts

CORRUPTION suspect Sackey Namugongo made cash deposits totalling N$260 500 into his bank accounts over the course of six months in 2006, according to evidence submitted to the Windhoek Regional Court during Namugongo’s continuing trial on charges of fraud and corruption this week.

Namugongo (56) is accused of having corruptly used his position in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, where he is still employed as a Deputy Director, to receive payments totalling N$365 000 from gambling licence applicants from March to September 2006, despite a moratorium on the issuing of gambling house licences being in place.Namugongo pleaded not guilty to twenty main counts of corruption and twenty main counts of fraud at the start of his trial before Regional Court Magistrate Sarel Jacobs in early July last year.With the trial continuing this week after a week-long break in proceedings, bank records on seven accounts that Namugongo had with First National Bank of Namibia, as well as a collection of deposit slips recording deposits that Namugongo is claimed to have made into his accounts, have become part of the evidence before court.The deposit slips show that from March 16 to September 8 2006, Namugongo made thirteen deposits of substantial amounts in cash into his bank accounts. The deposits totalled N$260 500, with the smallest a deposit of N$6 000 on April 27 2006, and the largest being a deposit of N$60 000, which was made on September 8 2006.During March 2006, Namugongo made cash deposits totalling N$18 500, the deposit slips show. The next month, he made deposits amounting to N$32 000, with N$48 000 deposited in May 2006, only one deposit of N$20 000 made by him in June 2006, and four deposits, amounting to N$82 000, made in August 2006.Bank statements recording transactions on Namugongo’s accounts with First National Bank also reflect other deposits of round amounts of money into his accounts. These include a deposit of N$10 000 that was made by the prosecution’s 24th witness in Namugongo’s trial, businessman Petrus Shambo, on July 11 2006.Shambo has been testifying for the past two days, and is set to return to the witness stand today to continue with his testimony.He told the Magistrate that on July 11 2006, after Namugongo had told him that he had to pay N$25 000 to be issued with a gambling house licence, he handed N$15 000 in cash to Namugongo in the latter’s office.Shambo said he was surprised when he had to pay the money directly to Namugongo, instead of to someone like a Ministry cashier. He claimed he had initially wanted to pay this money into an account of the Ministry, but Namugongo objected to that, telling him that it would take a month or a month and a half to get back statements on the Ministry’s account and it would then be difficult to reconcile payments recorded in the statements with applications for gambling licences.After he had paid the N$15 000 in cash to Namugongo, he and Namugongo went to a bank in the Ausspannplatz area, where he then paid an additional N$10 000 into Namugongo’s personal account, Shambo said.He told the court that Namugongo afterwards asked him to also refer other previously disadvantaged would-be gambling licence applicants to him for assistance.Namugongo said he had been appointed to his post to help ‘us black people’, and he would first attend to these people before attending to anyone else, Shambo claimed.The inauguration of a new railway station at Ondangwa took place some time after that, and it was on that day that he received a call from Namugongo and went to meet him at a hotel at Ondangwa, Shambo also told the court.On that occasion, three people that he knew and had assured that Namugongo could help them with gambling licence applications were also at the hotel, Shambo said. He testified that in his presence they handed amounts of N$25 000, N$17 000 and N$25 000 respectively to Namugongo, who then issued them with letters acknowledging receipt of their applications and that were supposed to serve as temporary licences that they could use in the meantime.After it transpired that the documents issued by Namugongo were not in fact legal temporary licences, those people held him accountable for the loss of their money, Shambo said.He refunded the person who paid him N$17 000 that full amount, one of those that paid N$25 000 has in the meantime sold his car without his permission in order to recover her money, and the other person who paid N$25 000 has sued him, and he is paying back the money to that person in monthly instalments, Shambo said.He added that he has repeatedly pleaded with Namugongo since then to ask his help to pay back the money, but despite promises from Namugongo he has not received anything from him yet.The trial is continuing today. Deputy Prosecutor General Orben Sibeya is representing the State. Namugongo is represented by defence lawyer Titus Mbaeva.werner@namibian.com.na

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