Five Henties Council officials arrested

THREE Henties Bay town councillors and the town’s CEO were arrested by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday afternoon.

The acting Director of the ACC, Erna van der Merwe, said the Prosecutor General had decided to charge councillors Anna Amutenya (Civics), Lena //Hoëses (UDF) and Daniel Ndume (Swapo), as well as human resources manager Johannes Kuhn and CEO Pieter Gurirab in terms of the Anti-Corruption Act. They are facing a charge of corruptly using office or position for gratification, alternatively failing to report corruption.Kuhn is currently in South Africa.The other four will appear in the Swakop-mund Magistrate’s Court today, according to the ACC.Van der Merwe explained the charges to The Namibian in layman’s terms: the suspects allegedly used their positions to appoint three friends or relatives to positions in the Henties Bay Municipality. Stanley Ganaseb, Christian Somaeb and Seth Reuter were appointed as general labourers on July 2007.Asked for comment on the arrests, Henties Bay Mayor Gisela Cramer told The Namibian that she knew nothing about the arrest.Indications from the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court were that the suspects would make an after-hours bail application yesterday evening. The case would then be transferred to the Regional Court.