Graft buster drops ‘some’ older cases

THE Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has had to drop a number of cases it was investigating, after the Attorney General advised that only cases that occurred after the Anti-Corruption Act became law would be prosecutable, ACC Director Paulus Noa has told The Namibian.

‘We have had to stop working on some cases because of the legal opinion from the Attorney General’s office that we cannot charge people in matters that happened before that,’ Noa said in an interview. The Anti-Corruption Act of 2003 was signed by then-President Sam Nujoma on July 16 2003 before being published in Government Gazette Number 3037 of 2003. Cases of corruption that precede this date can only be investigated by the Police, Noa explained.He declined to say how many and which cases had to be dropped, but indicated that it is now unlikely they will ever be prosecuted.Legal sources confirmed that this was indeed the case. ‘No law can come into effect until it has been legally proclaimed in the Government Gazette,’ a local lawyer said.These cases do not include some of the highest-profile ones such the Avid, Offshore Development Corporation (ODC) and Roads Contractor Company (RCC) cases, which all have been handed over to the Office of the Prosecutor General for a decision, Noa said. Noa stressed that poor administration, a lack of clear policies and insufficient supervision in the civil service were the most important cause of many of the cases reported to the ACC so far.Contrary to public perceptions, the incidence of real corrupt practices had shown a ‘considerable reduction’, Noa said.In the period 2007 to 2008, 900 cases were registered, while in the period 2008 to 2009, 974 cases were registered by the ACC. Of these, 70 have been handed to the Prosecutor General for a decision whether to prosecute or not. While the public has the right to know if the ACC is winning the fight against corruption, it is the Prosecutor General’s mandate to prosecute or not, he stressed. ‘Unfortunately, the courts are overloaded with some other criminal matters and this may result in the delay of finalisation of corruption trails,’ he said. * John Grobler is a freelance journalist; johngrob@iway.na