Civilian driver charged for 2009 motorcade crash

THE driver of a black Mercedes Benz that crashed into the ‘sweeper vehicle’ of the presidential motorcade near Swakopmund in October last year will have to appear in the Walvis Bay Magistrate’s court on a charge of reckless and negligent driving.

Albertine Povanhu (27) was expected to receive a summons within this week after the Prosecutor General decided she should be prosecuted.
The incident took place on the morning of Wednesday, 28 October 2009, on the coastal road between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. Pavanhu, her sister and a friend were on their way to Swakopmund for a job interview, while at the same time the motorcade was racing President Hifikepunye Pohamba to the commissioning of Areva’s desalination plant near Wlotzkasbaken.
The ‘sweeper vehicle’, driven by Nampol’s Chief Inspector Tobias Gerber, who was responsible for clearing the way of cars for the motorcade to pass, allegedly moved alongside Povanhu’s car to order her to pull off the road when the two cars collided.
The impact resulted in both vehicles smashing through a railing on a two-metre-high wall at ‘Boere Beach’ about seven kilometres outside Swakop-mund, before coming to a standstill on the high-water mark. Fortunately no one was injured.
It is alleged that after Povanhu passed a slower-moving truck – allegedly unaware of the oncoming motorcade – Gerber’s police car also passed the truck and pulled up next to her Mercedes, ordering her to pull over.
It is further alleged that Povanhu, when seeing the Police car next to hers, got such a fright that she accidentally swerved into the Police car.
In a previous interview with The Namibian, Povanhu claimed that she was driving within the speed limit and that ‘there was no sign of the President being on the road’, nor did she notice a Police car behind her flashing its lights to warn her of an oncoming motorcade. The date of her court appearance was still unknown at the time of going to press.