Editorial: The ODC Needs To Break Its Silence

ARE those involved in the hunt for the Offshore Development Company’s missing N$100 million chasing their own tails, or are they making progress as they seemingly would like us to believe? Yet another week of stonewalling has passed without any information emerging on progress in recovering the missing millions.

It is now nearly two months since The Namibian first reported on the dodgy investment deal, and with each passing week the silence becomes more deafening. The public is getting increasingly edgy.They want an explanation in the wake of the revelations of missing money, and coming as it does hot on the heels of the SSC-Avid N$30 million disappearance, they are more than fully within their rights to make such a demand.Public money is at stake.No one wants to jeopardise the cross-border investigation, but the ODC Board owes it to the public to explain what is being done to get the millions back.Transparency and accountability remain of paramount importance.Where ODC officials were generous in investing close to N$100 million of taxpayers’ money, they are being worse than miserly in providing information on what now appears to be a gung-ho deal.Any concrete or substantive information that has been revealed over the past two months has been the result of independent investigations by this newspaper.Virtually no details have been forthcoming from those charged with responsibility for the N$100 million.Are those involved trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes? Are they scurrying about to cover their tracks and protect their own interests? This is the impression being created by their evasiveness.There was public outrage over the whereabouts of the Social Security Commission’s N$30 million.In that case there was a speedy attempt to find the money, but now with more than three times that amount missing, unexplained and unaccounted for, the public is expected to remain “patient” two months later.Even a recent demonstration by teachers demanded an explanation for the ODC’s dubious investment, and letters and queries continue to flow to this newspaper.Public accountability does not appear to be high on the priority list for the ODC or its shareholder, Government – least of all from the company’s two top officials – its elusive Board Chairperson Gerdus Burmeister (also a shareholder in the company) and the even scarcer CEO, Abdool Aboobakar.They are not doing themselves any favours by shrugging off demands for information.In fact, they are diminishing any inkling of belief that the ODC just might have been unknowingly and unwittingly taken for a ride by seasoned conmen.How lame of the ODC’s management, the very people who were behind signing away millions to shady, so-called investors, to claim that they are not “mandated to speak to the media”.They do not appear to have been plagued by being mandated or not when they made the ‘investment’ in the first place.Adding insult to injury, ODC Finance Manager Mabos Ortman just appears to be running up high travel costs as he flies out of the country almost every second week to track down the money – money that was due for payback a year ago! This begs the question as to what ODC management has been doing all this time.Those feigning ignorance appear to be using the fact that there have been no board meetings for more than a year to cloud who exactly was responsible and who knew what money was going where.This in turn has added to the list of mounting questions about the ODC’s missing money.Surely, if progress is being made, the ODC could at least keep the public informed without “jeopardising the investigation”.Namibians cannot help but doubt that given the recent trail of events, talk of “progress” and “big developments” is nothing but hot air and that there is in fact little to report in the way of success.We can only hope that between the Police in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, forensic auditors, two lawyers, the ODC board and management and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, someone will come up with answers as a matter of urgency.The public is getting increasingly edgy.They want an explanation in the wake of the revelations of missing money, and coming as it does hot on the heels of the SSC-Avid N$30 million disappearance, they are more than fully within their rights to make such a demand.Public money is at stake.No one wants to jeopardise the cross-border investigation, but the ODC Board owes it to the public to explain what is being done to get the millions back.Transparency and accountability remain of paramount importance.Where ODC officials were generous in investing close to N$100 million of taxpayers’ money, they are being worse than miserly in providing information on what now appears to be a gung-ho deal.Any concrete or substantive information that has been revealed over the past two months has been the result of independent investigations by this newspaper.Virtually no details have been forthcoming from those charged with responsibility for the N$100 million.Are those involved trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes? Are they scurrying about to cover their tracks and protect their own interests? This is the impression being created by their evasiveness.There was public outrage over the whereabouts of the Social Security Commission’s N$30 million.In that case there was a speedy attempt to find the money, but now with more than three times that amount missing, unexplained and unaccounted for, the public is expected to remain “patient” two months later.Even a recent demonstration by teachers demanded an explanation for the ODC’s dubious investment, and letters and queries continue to flow to this newspaper.Public accountability does not appear to be high on the priority list for the ODC or its shareholder, Government – least of all from the company’s two top officials – its elusive Board Chairperson Gerdus Burmeister (also a shareholder in the company) and the even scarcer CEO, Abdool Aboobakar.They are not doing themselves any favours by shrugging off demands for information.In fact, they are diminishing any inkling of belief that the ODC just might have been unknowingly and unwittingly taken for a ride by seasoned conmen.How lame of the ODC’s management, the very people who were behind signing away millions to shady, so-called investors, to claim that they are not “mandated to speak to the media”.They do not appear to have been plagued by being mandated or not when they made the ‘investment’ in the first place.Adding insult to injury, ODC Finance Manager Mabos Ortman just appears to be running up high travel costs as he flies out of the country almost every second week to track down the money – money that was due for payback a year ago! This begs the question as to what ODC management has been doing all this time.Those feigning ignorance appear to be using the fact that there have been no board meetings for more than a year to cloud who exactly was responsible and who knew what money was going where.This in turn has added to the list of mounting questions about the ODC’s missing money.Surely, if progress is being made, the ODC could at least keep the public informed without “jeopardising the investigation”.Namibians cannot help but doubt that given the recent trail of events, talk of “progress” and “big developments” is nothing but hot air and that there is in fact little to report in the way of success.We can only hope that between the Police in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, forensic auditors, two lawyers, the ODC board and management and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, someone will come up with answers as a matter of urgency.