Dial ‘C’ for corruption

THE collapse of a business partnership in the company responsible for Namibia’s national telephone directory has degenerated into a mudslinging contest in which the weapons of choice are accusations of corruption, treachery, backstabbing and double-dealing.

Something as boring but essential as the phone directory was the spark that set off the explosion of accusations and counter-accusations between former business partners Tshoombe Ndadi and Lance Cotterell when they and their legal teams went head-to-head in an urgent application in the High Court last week. The application from Ndadi’s African Directory Services (ADS) – the company contracted by Telecom Namibia to produce Namibia’s telephone directory since 2000 – was eventually dismissed by Judge Louis Muller when the Judge could not be convinced that it met the requirements of urgency.FOUL PLAY ALLEGED In the application, ADS asked the court for an extensive interdict against Cotterell and his Wildlife Conservation Company.Among other things, ADS wanted the court to order them not to pass off their business, Directory Advisory Services, as being ADS or being connected to it, not to interfere with the relationship between ADS and its clients, to stop “unlawfully competing with (ADS) by spreading malicious falsehoods about (ADS) to its clients and/or (Telecom Namibia)”, not to unlawfully compete with ADS “by misappropriating and misusing confidential information which is the property of (ADS)”, and to disclose to ADS’s lawyers under oath which of ADS’s clients they had approached.Cotterell, who claims to have 38 years of experience in marketing and putting together telephone directories, is a minority shareholder of ADS.He received shares in the company after ADS – then still known as AIM Publications – contracted him, through his Wildlife Conservation Company, in May 2002 to become responsible for marketing and sales around the phone directory.Because businesses have to pay if they want to have their entries in the directory customised and placed optimally in order to be more eye-catching, the company that puts together and publishes the telephone directory has a multi-million dollar business on its hands.According to Ndadi, ADS is contractually obliged to Telecom Namibia to generate revenue of at least N$12,2 million with the yet to be published 2006-07 directory.According to Cotterell, ADS has actually managed to exceed that target by far with the 2005-06 directory already, which he says realised revenue of about N$18,5 million.ADS initially paid Cotterell N$27 000 a month for his expertise, according to Ndadi.’LURKING ADDER’ This was later upped to N$35 000 a month – but then, in October last year, ADS realised that it had been nursing an adder in its bosom, and that this adder came in the guise of Cotterell, Ndadi indicated to the court in an affidavit.According to Cotterell, he had merely been a whistle blower on dishonesty and insider dealing that the company was involved in when it managed to win a tender to also publish Botswana’s telephone directory.”Nothing wrong with exposing unethical and dishonest conduct,” he states in an affidavit.According to Ndadi, Cotterell had been a treacherous presence in the company.Cotterell had been leaking information to ADS’s main competitor for the Botswana contract, AC Braby, which that company then used to institute legal proceedings against ADS in Botswana in an effort to get the award of the Botswana contract to ADS cancelled, Ndadi claims.To make matters worse, he adds, Cotterell turned on his own company, ADS, after he was booted from it in October, and started contacting major clients of ADS in an effort to persuade them to change their phone book advertising agreements with ADS.In addition, Cotterell has now written to Telecom Namibia directly to suggest that the phone directory contract – which is set to end in October with the publication of the 2006-07 directory – should not again be put out on tender, but that Telecom Namibia could save the millions of dollars it has paid ADS each year if it instead chooses to handle the directory compilation and publication itself.Cotterell has replied to Ndadi’s claims by stating that he, through Directory Advisory Services, has merely offered advice to some ADS clients to show them where they had been overcharged and how they could save thousands – or as much as hundreds of thousands – of Namibia dollars on their phone book advertising bills.As for the Botswana contract that ADS won, this was done through “unlawful and adverse competitive practices with insider assistance”, Cotterell claims.Cotterell admits that he had been in contact with AC Braby since February last year, when ADS was still bidding for the Botswana contract.He also admits that he informed AC Braby of “corruption and collusion” between ADS and the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation that would put AC Braby in danger of losing the contract that it had long had for the publication of the Botswana phone directory.Despite Ndadi’s claims to the contrary, ADS did receive improper assistance with the Botswana tender, in the form of inside information on AC Braby’s previous contract with the BTC, which enabled ADS to in the first place submit a proper tender to BTC, Cotterell claims.This inside information came from a BTC official, Lefika Rabashwa, who has admitted that he supplied a friend, Kabelo Mohohlo, with the contract between AC Braby and BTC and also with information on royalties.Mohohlo in turn passed that information on to Ndadi, who was supposed to be his business partner in the bid for the Botswana phone book contract, Rabashwa himself states in a statement before the High Court.Ndadi later dumped Mohohlo, claims Cotterell.He states: “The truth is that Mr Ndadi, after exploiting his Botswana partner’s connections, went behind his back at the moment of truth and concluded a deal alone with BTC.”He also states: “It was only after receiving information and confidential documents, draft agreements between the BTC-AC Braby, from inside BTC that Applicant (ADS), Mr Ndadi and I, were able to compile Applicant’s bid in Botswana to BTC.My co-operation was under declared protest because I felt that Applicant had obtained an unfair advantage over a rival bidder, AC Braby.”Cotterell also declared: “In short, despite his denials, Mr Ndadi / the Applicant was awarded the BTC tender as a result of gross irregularities.”The litigation in which AC Braby is attacking the awarding of the BTC tender to ADS remains pending in Botswana.The application from Ndadi’s African Directory Services (ADS) – the company contracted by Telecom Namibia to produce Namibia’s telephone directory since 2000 – was eventually dismissed by Judge Louis Muller when the Judge could not be convinced that it met the requirements of urgency.FOUL PLAY ALLEGED In the application, ADS asked the court for an extensive interdict against Cotterell and his Wildlife Conservation Company.Among other things, ADS wanted the court to order them not to pass off their business, Directory Advisory Services, as being ADS or being connected to it, not to interfere with the relationship between ADS and its clients, to stop “unlawfully competing with (ADS) by spreading malicious falsehoods about (ADS) to its clients and/or (Telecom Namibia)”, not to unlawfully compete with ADS “by misappropriating and misusing confidential information which is the property of (ADS)”, and to disclose to ADS’s lawyers under oath which of ADS’s clients they had approached. Cotterell, who claims to have 38 years of experience in marketing and putting together telephone directories, is a minority shareholder of ADS.He received shares in the company after ADS – then still known as AIM Publications – contracted him, through his Wildlife Conservation Company, in May 2002 to become responsible for marketing and sales around the phone directory.Because businesses have to pay if they want to have their entries in the directory customised and placed optimally in order to be more eye-catching, the company that puts together and publishes the telephone directory has
a multi-million dollar business on its hands.According to Ndadi, ADS is contractually obliged to Telecom Namibia to generate revenue of at least N$12,2 million with the yet to be published 2006-07 directory.According to Cotterell, ADS has actually managed to exceed that target by far with the 2005-06 directory already, which he says realised revenue of about N$18,5 million.ADS initially paid Cotterell N$27 000 a month for his expertise, according to Ndadi. ‘LURKING ADDER’ This was later upped to N$35 000 a month – but then, in October last year, ADS realised that it had been nursing an adder in its bosom, and that this adder came in the guise of Cotterell, Ndadi indicated to the court in an affidavit.According to Cotterell, he had merely been a whistle blower on dishonesty and insider dealing that the company was involved in when it managed to win a tender to also publish Botswana’s telephone directory.”Nothing wrong with exposing unethical and dishonest conduct,” he states in an affidavit.According to Ndadi, Cotterell had been a treacherous presence in the company.Cotterell had been leaking information to ADS’s main competitor for the Botswana contract, AC Braby, which that company then used to institute legal proceedings against ADS in Botswana in an effort to get the award of the Botswana contract to ADS cancelled, Ndadi claims.To make matters worse, he adds, Cotterell turned on his own company, ADS, after he was booted from it in October, and started contacting major clients of ADS in an effort to persuade them to change their phone book advertising agreements with ADS.In addition, Cotterell has now written to Telecom Namibia directly to suggest that the phone directory contract – which is set to end in October with the publication of the 2006-07 directory – should not again be put out on tender, but that Telecom Namibia could save the millions of dollars it has paid ADS each year if it instead chooses to handle the directory compilation and publication itself.Cotterell has replied to Ndadi’s claims by stating that he, through Directory Advisory Services, has merely offered advice to some ADS clients to show them where they had been overcharged and how they could save thousands – or as much as hundreds of thousands – of Namibia dollars on their phone book advertising bills.As for the Botswana contract that ADS won, this was done through “unlawful and adverse competitive practices with insider assistance”, Cotterell claims.Cotterell admits that he had been in contact with AC Braby since February last year, when ADS was still bidding for the Botswana contract.He also admits that he informed AC Braby of “corruption and collusion” between ADS and the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation that would put AC Braby in danger of losing the contract that it had long had for the publication of the Botswana phone directory.Despite Ndadi’s claims to the contrary, ADS did receive improper assistance with the Botswana tender, in the form of inside information on AC Braby’s previous contract with the BTC, which enabled ADS to in the first place submit a proper tender to BTC, Cotterell claims.This inside information came from a BTC official, Lefika Rabashwa, who has admitted that he supplied a friend, Kabelo Mohohlo, with the contract between AC Braby and BTC and also with information on royalties.Mohohlo in turn passed that information on to Ndadi, who was supposed to be his business partner in the bid for the Botswana phone book contract, Rabashwa himself states in a statement before the High Court.Ndadi later dumped Mohohlo, claims Cotterell.He states: “The truth is that Mr Ndadi, after exploiting his Botswana partner’s connections, went behind his back at the moment of truth and concluded a deal alone with BTC.”He also states: “It was only after receiving information and confidential documents, draft agreements between the BTC-AC Braby, from inside BTC that Applicant (ADS), Mr Ndadi and I, were able to compile Applicant’s bid in Botswana to BTC.My co-operation was under declared protest because I felt that Applicant had obtained an unfair advantage over a rival bidder, AC Braby.”Cotterell also declared: “In short, despite his denials, Mr Ndadi / the Applicant was awarded the BTC tender as a result of gross irregularities.”The litigation in which AC Braby is attacking the awarding of the BTC tender to ADS remains pending in Botswana.