Kandara SMS campaign upsets the family

FAMILY members of the late Lazarus Kandara have expressed dismay over an SMS competition about his gunshot death.

A spokesperson for Kandara relatives who have received SMS messages on their cellphones inviting responses on their views about the circumstances of Kandara’s death told The Namibian this week that they felt the SMS messages were in bad taste and insensitive. “The people are callous,” Immanuël /Gâseb, in whose house the late Kandara grew up, remarked this week.He said his children had received an upsetting SMS appearing to invite responses in a competition over Kandara’s death last week.The message reads: “In your opinion, do you really think that there might be a possibility that Kandara was shot by someone other than himself? SMS YES or NO to 505.”He and his family feel that someone’s death is now being turned into a mockery and a game, /Gâseb said.Kandara died from a gunshot wound to his chest in front of the Windhoek Police Station on the evening of August 24.He had been arrested on charges of fraud and theft only a few hours earlier.The charges emanated from the alleged disappearance of N$30 million the Social Security Commission invested with an inexperienced asset management company run by Kandara, Avid Investment Corporation, for a four-month period in January last year.According to the Police, Kandara shot himself with a pistol that he managed to get hold of during a visit under Police escort to his house in Windhoek following his arrest.The cause and circumstances of Kandara’s death remain under investigation, and the event is still the subject of an inquest in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court, which has been suspended pending a High Court ruling on a dispute over the way the inquest is being conducted./Gâseb said many questions over Kandara’s death remained unresolved for Kandara’s family, and that they had pinned their hopes on a fair justice system being able to provide them with the answers they were looking for.Something like the SMS messages that his daughters had received were merely reopening old wounds unnecessarily, he said.The number mentioned in the SMS in question is being used by Hutech Information Systems CC, which is an information-technology and marketing business based in Windhoek.Marketing and information campaigns through SMSes are part of the services delivered by Hutech, the corporation stated yesterday.Hutech sends a weekly question on a topical issue to people who have in the past sent SMS responses in previous campaigns run by Hutech, Hugo de Koe, who owns and runs the close corporation, said yesterday.People who respond to the question are eligible to win a cash prize, he said.The question about Kandara’s death was sent out in the week that the inquest into his death was in progress, so it was considered an issue that was prominent on the public stage at the time and that was worthwhile gauging public opinion about, De Koe said.According to Hutech, no harm was intended with that SMS.The company further stated that it also considered the message and the replies it invited as an opportunity to test public opinion and give people an opportunity to air their views on what was considered a public issue.He sees it as part of freedom of communication, said De Koe.This week, for instance, he added, Hutech’s SMS question campaign was about the levels of Namibia’s storage dams, asking whether people thought water prices should be dropped now that the dams were full.”The people are callous,” Immanuël /Gâseb, in whose house the late Kandara grew up, remarked this week.He said his children had received an upsetting SMS appearing to invite responses in a competition over Kandara’s death last week.The message reads: “In your opinion, do you really think that there might be a possibility that Kandara was shot by someone other than himself? SMS YES or NO to 505.”He and his family feel that someone’s death is now being turned into a mockery and a game, /Gâseb said.Kandara died from a gunshot wound to his chest in front of the Windhoek Police Station on the evening of August 24.He had been arrested on charges of fraud and theft only a few hours earlier.The charges emanated from the alleged disappearance of N$30 million the Social Security Commission invested with an inexperienced asset management company run by Kandara, Avid Investment Corporation, for a four-month period in January last year. According to the Police, Kandara shot himself with a pistol that he managed to get hold of during a visit under Police escort to his house in Windhoek following his arrest.The cause and circumstances of Kandara’s death remain under investigation, and the event is still the subject of an inquest in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court, which has been suspended pending a High Court ruling on a dispute over the way the inquest is being conducted./Gâseb said many questions over Kandara’s death remained unresolved for Kandara’s family, and that they had pinned their hopes on a fair justice system being able to provide them with the answers they were looking for.Something like the SMS messages that his daughters had received were merely reopening old wounds unnecessarily, he said.The number mentioned in the SMS in question is being used by Hutech Information Systems CC, which is an information-technology and marketing business based in Windhoek.Marketing and information campaigns through SMSes are part of the services delivered by Hutech, the corporation stated yesterday.Hutech sends a weekly question on a topical issue to people who have in the past sent SMS responses in previous campaigns run by Hutech, Hugo de Koe, who owns and runs the close corporation, said yesterday.People who respond to the question are eligible to win a cash prize, he said.The question about Kandara’s death was sent out in the week that the inquest into his death was in progress, so it was considered an issue that was prominent on the public stage at the time and that was worthwhile gauging public opinion about, De Koe said.According to Hutech, no harm was intended with that SMS.The company further stated that it also considered the message and the replies it invited as an opportunity to test public opinion and give people an opportunity to air their views on what was considered a public issue.He sees it as part of freedom of communication, said De Koe.This week, for instance, he added, Hutech’s SMS question campaign was about the levels of Namibia’s storage dams, asking whether people thought water prices should be dropped now that the dams were full.