Cash crunch trips up bail of Lameck and co

THE Teko Trading trio’s time in custody in Windhoek Central Prison is set to stretch to a month before they will be applying to be released on bail.

Four months after millions of Namibia dollars flowed through the bank accounts of Public Service Commission member Teckla Lameck, her business partner and fellow member of Teko Trading CC, Kongo Mokaxwa, and Chinese national Yang Fan, a shortage of money prevented a bail application by the three from starting as scheduled in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday.An array of assets – including bank accounts – of Lameck (48), Mokaxwa (30) and Yang (39) was frozen through a court order in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act on July 6. Over the days that followed the giving of that order, Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang were arrested and charged in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on counts of fraud, bribery and corruption.The charges against them are connected to a contract between the Ministry of Finance and a Chinese manufacturer of X-ray security scanners, Nuctech Company, in terms of which Nuctech has to supply cargo and luggage scanning equipment to the Namibian Government at a total cost of US$55,34 million.Defence lawyer Sisa Namandje, who is representing all three detained suspects, told Magistrate Gerrit van Pletzen yesterday that whereas his clients’ bail application was supposed to start yesterday, one of them does not have funds to pay for his legal representation at this stage. As a result, it was decided to postpone the start of the bail hearing to August 10.Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang have been detained in Windhoek Central Prison since making a first court appearance on July 9 and 10. With the postponement of their bail application, they are set to remain in custody in circumstances that have already prompted a complaint from Lameck.Commenting on conditions in the female section of the prison, Lameck has stated in an affidavit filed with the High Court last week: ‘The winter is bitterly cold and the cells have no hot water or electricity.’It is understood that the person struggling to pay for his lawyer’s services is Yang.He is claimed to have received the biggest chunk of an alleged kickback of N$42 million that Nuctech paid to Teko Trading after the Finance Ministry made a payment of US$12,828 million (the equivalent of about N$127,5 million at the time) to Nuctech at the end of February this year.Of the N$42 million that Nuctech transferred to a bank account of Teko Trading from March 11 to 12, more than N$16,824 million was in turn transferred into a bank account of Yang.As a senior overseas marketing manager of Nuctech, Yang signed the agreement with the Finance Ministry as a representative of the Chinese company on May 14 last year.In her affidavit, Lameck pointed out to the court that the agreement between the Finance Ministry and Nuctech includes a clause stating that Nuctech could appoint sub-contractors to perform any part of its obligations under the contract.She informed the court that Teko Trading and Nuctech first signed an ‘Agency Agreement’ in early April 2007.Teko Trading and Nuctech signed another ‘Agency Agreement’ on May 19 2008, Lameck related. (It was erroneously reported in The Namibian on Monday that this agreement was signed on May 19 this year.) In this agreement, Nuctech agreed to pay Teko Trading US$12,828 million – the exact same amount that the Finance Ministry had agreed five days earlier to pay Nuctech as a first payment under its agreement with the Chinese company – as a commission on the contract Nuctech and the Finance Ministry had signed.Teko Trading’s responsibility in terms of that agreement was to advocate Nuctech’s products and lobby with Government to continue to purchase the company’s scanner systems, and to facilitate the signing of a loan agreement between the Finance Ministry and a Chinese bank, Lameck has stated in her affidavit.Lameck also claimed: ‘Those obligations relating to advocacy for the Nuctech products and lobbying the Namibian Government related to the future and have nothing to do with the contract between Nuctech and the Ministry of Finance which was signed on 14 May 2008.’She further stated that a loan agreement between the Finance Ministry and a Chinese bank was signed in August last year, ‘after Teko Trading CC provided logistical and information support to Nuctech where it was required’.According to Lameck there was no contractual duty on Nuctech to inform the Finance Ministry that any sub-contractor had been appointed by Nuctech as an agent.She added that in terms of agency and consultancy agreements that were concluded between Nuctech and Teko Trading on February 10 this year – three weeks before Nuctech paid N$42 million to Teko Trading – Teko Trading became entitled to the commission which was later paid to it.'(Teko Trading CC) was perfectly entitled to this amount after it rendered the necessary invoices to (Nuctech) in terms of the agreements,’ Lameck stated.She added that there was ‘nothing untoward’ in the agency and consultancy agreements between Nuctech and Teko Trading. An attempt to say that the payment of the N$42 million to Teko Trading is corrupt or constituted fraud ‘is devoid of any legal basis’, she declared.Lameck also justified the size of the claimed commission of N$42 million that was paid to Teko Trading: ‘I point out that by common commercial experience a broker or agent may receive a commission as agreed between the parties, which others consider disproportionate to efforts involved. (. . .) I respectfully submit that the amount involved cannot cause a non-fraudulent transaction to become a fraudulent transaction, just because the amount of the commission is higher than what the (Prosecutor General) perceived it should be.’