Ex-NBC staffers admit TV licence corruption

TWO former employees of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday admitted that they were guilty of corruption and other crimes in connection with the selling of stolen NBC television licences five years ago.

James Tjilondelo, who was employed at the NBC as a senior compliance officer, and Timotheus Sheepo, who was a compliance officer with the national broadcaster, are set to be sentenced by Magistrate Dinnah Usiku in the Windhoek Regional Court on Wednesday next week. Each of them has pleaded guilty to two charges.Tjilondelo (29) admitted guilt to a charge of theft and a count of the corrupt use of an office or position to obtain gratification.Sheepo (43) pleaded guilty to charges of receiving stolen property, and the corrupt use of an office or position to obtain gratification.The crimes which the men admitted cost the NBC close to N$110 000.Tjilondelo admitted that he stole ten television licence books from the NBC in August 2007. He later on started to sell TV licences from those books, and pocketed the money which unsuspecting television owners paid him for the licences. He obtained a total of N$69 042 in the process, he admitted.Five of the licence books which Tjilondelo had stolen were later given to Sheepo, the court was told.Sheepo admitted that he received the stolen licence books in August 2007, and that he then also started to sell TV licences and to keep the money which he received for the licences. He received N$40 762 from the sale of the stolen licences, he admitted.Tjilondelo and Sheepo were later charged after the Anti-Corruption Commission had carried out an investigation into the licence scam.Both men are currently unemployed, their defence lawyer, Gloria Situmbeko, told the magistrate. She said they were both aware of the seriousness of the offences they had committed, and that they were sincerely sorry about what they had done.Each of them is able to pay a fine of N$2 000 on each of the two counts they admitted, Situmbeko said.Addressing the court on the sentences to be imposed on the two men, Public Prosecutor Carol-Ann Esterhuizen argued that Tjilondelo and Sheepo pleaded guilty because of the overwhelming evidence they were facing.She argued that they had abused the trust which was placed in them by the NBC by selling the licences for their own benefit.The court should make it clear that people entrusted with responsibilities by their employers should not abuse their position in any way, Esterhuizen argued.The two men remain free while awaiting their sentencing.

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