Editorial: Will The Rot Never End?

WHEN will the rot come to an end? In yet another saga of corruption and mismanagement, this time the hearings at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the defunct Development Brigade Corporation (DBC) and Amalgamated Commercial Holdings (Amcom), more reports of almost unbelievable theft and plunder have come under the spotlight.

There’s a strong sense of deja vu as the various hearings into several parastatals have taken place over the past few years, all of them revealing scandalous lack of management and controls and often outright theft. Ironically, in this most recent investigation, set in motion by the President, the head of state himself has come under scrutiny, and needs to account to the public as to why he was the beneficiary of apparent kickbacks from the Patriotic Construction Company (PCC), a subsidiary of the DBC, and whose former General Manager, Eddie Champion, appears guilty of a variety of misdeeds.Among other things, the PCC footed the bill of about N$40 000 for a hunting expedition for the President on the farm of the former PCC chief, Eddie Champion.But this is merely one of many alleged wrongdoings by the chief executive officer in question.He is also alleged to have siphoned over hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company through fraudulent claims and other unauthorised expenditure.If Champion is guilty of the offences he is alleged to have committed at the helm of a corporation whose primary aim was to assist in developing skills bases for many unemployed former combatants, then he should not be walking free.Hopefully when this Presidential hearing comes to a close, no time will be wasted in compiling charge sheets against people who have abused not only public monies, but public trust as well.The hearings have also revealed that Government spent about N$120 million bailing out the DBC, a parastatal set up in 1992 for training and job creation to ease former combatants back into society.The revelations at this Presidential commission appear to go from bad to worse, as stories emerge of the most gratuitous graft and endless abuse by management of the main entity, the DBC, and its manifold subsidiaries.Now that the President himself has been fingered as one of those who benefited from the misappropriation, he does owe the public an accounting.We fail to see how the PCC could benefit from bankrolling a hunting trip for the President and/or how anyone could try to justify expenditure for such purposes.What has emerged at this and other public hearings into maladministration and corruption at various parastatals shows that there is little or no accountability whatsoever on the part of many of those in charge of these public funds.It is all the more worrying as these reports come in the wake of a Government probe into salaries and related issues at all parastatals, an inquiry spearheaded by Minister Helmut Angula, and which was supposed to ensure that good management and accountability was the order of the day.This too appears to have failed in its purpose.We reiterate that public monies have, at all times, to be closely guarded and properly administered if they are to benefit those they are intended to advantage, in the case of the DBC, former combatants.The officials put in charge of these initiatives have to face the music if they are found to be guilty of widespread theft and self-aggrandisement.We have said before, and we repeat, that there is no point to these commissions of inquiry if they do not bring transgressors to justice.We would therefore urge our law enforcement, even as the hearing progresses, to compile charge sheets to immediately bring against the perpetrators without further delay.Ironically, in this most recent investigation, set in motion by the President, the head of state himself has come under scrutiny, and needs to account to the public as to why he was the beneficiary of apparent kickbacks from the Patriotic Construction Company (PCC), a subsidiary of the DBC, and whose former General Manager, Eddie Champion, appears guilty of a variety of misdeeds.Among other things, the PCC footed the bill of about N$40 000 for a hunting expedition for the President on the farm of the former PCC chief, Eddie Champion.But this is merely one of many alleged wrongdoings by the chief executive officer in question.He is also alleged to have siphoned over hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company through fraudulent claims and other unauthorised expenditure.If Champion is guilty of the offences he is alleged to have committed at the helm of a corporation whose primary aim was to assist in developing skills bases for many unemployed former combatants, then he should not be walking free.Hopefully when this Presidential hearing comes to a close, no time will be wasted in compiling charge sheets against people who have abused not only public monies, but public trust as well.The hearings have also revealed that Government spent about N$120 million bailing out the DBC, a parastatal set up in 1992 for training and job creation to ease former combatants back into society.The revelations at this Presidential commission appear to go from bad to worse, as stories emerge of the most gratuitous graft and endless abuse by management of the main entity, the DBC, and its manifold subsidiaries.Now that the President himself has been fingered as one of those who benefited from the misappropriation, he does owe the public an accounting.We fail to see how the PCC could benefit from bankrolling a hunting trip for the President and/or how anyone could try to justify expenditure for such purposes.What has emerged at this and other public hearings into maladministration and corruption at various parastatals shows that there is little or no accountability whatsoever on the part of many of those in charge of these public funds.It is all the more worrying as these reports come in the wake of a Government probe into salaries and related issues at all parastatals, an inquiry spearheaded by Minister Helmut Angula, and which was supposed to ensure that good management and accountability was the order of the day.This too appears to have failed in its purpose.We reiterate that public monies have, at all times, to be closely guarded and properly administered if they are to benefit those they are intended to advantage, in the case of the DBC, former combatants.The officials put in charge of these initiatives have to face the music if they are found to be guilty of widespread theft and self-aggrandisement.We have said before, and we repeat, that there is no point to these commissions of inquiry if they do not bring transgressors to justice.We would therefore urge our law enforcement, even as the hearing progresses, to compile charge sheets to immediately bring against the perpetrators without further delay.