Fishrot accused Gustavo claims innocence

FORMER Investec Asset Management Namibia client director Ricardo Gustavo says he is not guilty of the charges in the Fishrot fishing quotas corruption case on which he was arrested six months ago, and he is also not aware of the suspected payment of N$120 million in alleged kickbacks to a Dubai-based company belonging to one of his co-accused.

Gustavo (44) said this while testifying during a bail hearing in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Testifying before magistrate Johannes Shuuveni in support of his application to be granted bail, Gustavo said he would plead “definitely not guilty” on all of the charges he is facing once he goes on trial. He is a man of integrity, and has never in his life stolen a cent from anyone, he said.

“I need to fight these charges and clear my name,” Gustavo also said. “I’ve always led a life of honesty.”

Gustavo (44), former fisheries minister Bernhard Esau, ex-minister of justice Sacky Shanghala, former Investec Namibia managing director James Hatuikulipi and Tamson Hatuikulipi, who is Esau’s son-in-law, are charged with fraud, bribery, money laundering and conspiring to commit corruption in connection with allegations that they had been involved in a scheme to benefit financially from the allocation of Namibian fishing quotas to the company Namgomar Pesca Namibia, of which Gustavo is the sole director.

Namgomar Pesca Namibia had a horse mackerel fishing quota in Namibia and had a catching agreement with an Icelandic-owned company that allegedly paid more than N$103 million in kickbacks to Esau, Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, Tamson Hatuikulipi and Gustavo, according to one of the charges against the five men.

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigator Karl Cloete also told the court during the bail hearing the ACC has established during its investigation of the case that Gustavo received N$11 million from Namgomar Pesca Namibia, and that an amount of N$3 million was also paid by the company to a contractor who carried out renovations on Gustavo’s home in an exclusive housing estate east of Windhoek.

It is also suspected that up to N$120 million had been paid by the Icelandic fishing company group Samherji to a company of James Hatuikulipi, Tundavala Invest, which is registered in Dubai, Cloete said. The ACC still needs to get documentary proof from Dubai of those payments, Cloete added.

Gustavo told the court after he had been approached by one Joao Barros with a proposal to serve as a director of Namgomar Pesca Namibia, he came the company’s sole director in 2014. He said he was paid “around a million a year” in that capacity, while he also received about N$1,5 million in remuneration annually from Investec Namibia.

According to Gustavo, he was dealing with Barros and taking instructions from him, and although he knew the Angolan company Namgomar Pesca is the shareholder of the similarly named Namibian company, he does not know who the Angolan company’s shareholders are.

Gustavo did not want to comment when public prosecutor Cliff Lutibezi asked him about a meeting in Iceland that was allegedly attended by him, Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi and Tamson Hatuikulipi, and where it was allegedly agreed that 75% of a fishing quota usage fee of N$3 000 per tonne of fish the Samherji group was to pay Namgomar Pesca Namibia was to be paid to James Hatuikulipi’s Tundavala Invest in Dubai.

However, Gustavo stated he did not know about the existence of Tundavala Invest. Answering questions from his defence lawyer, Trevor Brockerhoff, he added that as far as he was concerned Namgomar Pesca Namibia had an agreement with Samherji to be paid N$500 per tonne of fish in quota usage fees, and he was “not at all” aware that there was also an agreement for further payments to Tundavala Invest.

Gustavo has been in jail for nearly six months following his arrest on 27 November last year. As a result of his arrest and the charges he is facing, he lost his job at Investec Namibia and has been financially crippled, with a bank intending to foreclose on his house and his bank accounts overdrawn, he told the court.

The bail hearing is due to continue today.

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