Independent Patriots for Change parliamentarian Rodney Cloete on Tuesday questioned the appointment of Namibian Ports Authority (Namport) board chairperson Jerome Mouton, who is the managing director of the company Myrtle Growth Capital Namibia.
The company is accused of diverting N$7.3 million of the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) that was meant to build a school.
Cloete posed a question on the appointment of Mouton to works and transport minister Veikko Nekundi during a National Assembly session on Tuesday.
Myrtle Growth Capital Namibia‘s licence was revoked by the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa).
The saga began in 2020 when the GIPF pumped N$10 million into Amazing Kids Private School (AKPS), which wanted to build a campus in northern Namibia.
“The chairperson is the managing director of a
company that Namfisa deregistered in August 2023 after finding that N$7.3 million in GIPF money had been diverted to a sister entity also under his directorship,” Cloete said.
He said this prompted the GIPF to take steps, including issuing a public warning against doing business with the company and declaring it legally prohibited from managing a fund that held about N$450 million in the retirement savings of Namibian public servants.
Cloete questioned if the minister was aware before appointing Mouton, as well as if due diligence was conducted before he was appointed as chairperson of the Namport board of directors.
“The same minister who instructed the cancellation of the competitive tender for the N$4 billion Lüderitz oil and gas supply
base within 48 hours has now installed, as chairperson of the board that will oversee that project, an individual whose firm was
deregistered for diverting pension fund money,” Cloete claimed.
He wants the minister to table all Namport board members’ business interests in the National Assembly.
Nekundi is set to respond on Thursday.
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