Kickback bombshell

RALPH Blaauw, Otniel Podewiltz, “Kapia” and “Shiweda” received large cash payouts from Lazarus Kandara, the alleged rogue financial trader who is a kingpin in the scandal that has erupted around a N$30 million Social Security Commission investment through an inexperienced but politically well-connected asset management company, Kandara’s wife testified in the High Court yesterday.

Blaauw, Podewiltz and Shiweda each in person collected N$40 000 in cash from Kandara’s wife, Christofine Kandara, at her and her husband’s house some time in February or March, while Blaauw also collected an additional N$40 000 as payment that was meant for Kapia, Mrs Kandara told Acting Judge Raymond Heathcote in a moment of high courtroom drama yesterday afternoon. She pointed out Podewiltz in court, identified Blaauw from a photograph published on the front page of yesterday’s edition of The Namibian, and told the court that while she only knew money was meant for a certain Kapia, anyone would know from recent newspaper reports who that Kapia would have been.That same Kapia, Swapo Party Youth League Secretary and Deputy Works Minister Paulus Kapia, sat next to Podewiltz near the front of the courtroom as this evidence was unfolding in front of a rapt audience.After his surname had been mentioned the first time, and Mrs Kandara had gone on to mention it again and again thereafter, Kapia appeared to be sinking progressively lower in his chair.Next to him, Podewiltz shook his head at times, as if to indicate his disagreement with what Mrs Kandara was telling the court.Loud gasps came from the public gallery – as packed to capacity as it has been since Acting Judge Heathcote started his Companies Act inquiry two and a half weeks ago – when Mrs Kandara first mentioned three names: “Podewiltz”, “Ralph”, and “Shiweda”.A second set of gasps came seconds later, when Mrs Kandara added another name to her list: “Kapia”.Mrs Kandara is the wife of Lazarus Kandara, who was in charge of Avid Investment Corporation when the company – then barely half a year old – bagged a N$30 million investment deal from the SSC in late January.It was supposed to repay the money, plus a promised N$1,479 million in interest, to the SSC by late May.To date, it has been unable to do so.By the time that Avid landed the deal, Kapia and Sharon Blaauw, who is Ralph Blaauw’s wife, were on Avid’s board of directors.Podewiltz, who has told the court that he is the Ministry of Labour’s contact person for matters involving the SSC, was a former director.Depending on which documents from Avid were to be taken as correct, retired Namibia Defence Force Brigadier Mathias Shiweda could also have been a director of Avid at that stage, or he might only have joined the board at a later stage.So far during the inquiry, Acting Judge Heathcote has heard that the SSC transferred N$30 million to Avid on January 26.On January 28, Kandara ordered Avid’s bankers to transfer N$29,5 million to the account of another asset management company, Namangol Investments.From there, the money started going in different directions, including more than a million dollars that was transferred into the personal account of Nico Josea, the Chief Executive Officer of Namangol Investments.According to Mrs Kandara, her husband phoned her from Johannesburg on a Saturday morning some time in February or March – that would obviously have been shortly after the SSC’s money had found its way into the bank accounts of Namangol Investments and Josea – to tell her that Josea would be visiting her.When Josea arrived at her house, he had a document with him that he asked her to sign.Then he handed over money to her – either N$220 000 or N$240 000 in all, she testified.By then, Lazarus Kandara had already told her what to do with the money, she told the court.She was supposed to give the money to “certain people”, she continued, starting to cite names only when pressed on it.The recipients were to be Podewiltz, Ralph and Shiweda, she said.Her husband had asked her to give each of them N$40 000, she added.He also told her to give an additional N$40 000 to Ralph – whom she identified as Ralph Blaauw – who had to give that extra amount to Kapia.Josea told the court on Tuesday that he was looking for a list of names, with figures written next to them, that Kandara had left in his office once.The list consisted of the names “Tuli”, next to which was written 250 000, “Mulder”, with 150 000 next to it, “the group”, with 180 000 next to it, and “the office”, with a figure in the region of three hundred thousand-plus next to it, Josea had told the court.Earlier, Josea had testified that Kandara asked to be given back N$3,2 million of the money that Avid had transferred to Namangol Investments.On Tuesday, Josea told the court that he was looking for that piece of paper because he wanted to show to the court that money that was given to Kandara was also given to those people.Having heard Mrs Kandara tell the court that a total of N$160 000 was supposed to be given to Kapia, Blaauw, Podewiltz and Shiweda, Acting Judge Heathcote promptly asked SSC counsel Andrew Corbett what had been on that list again.It had been 180 000 for “the group”, but perhaps they had been short-changed in the end, Corbett answered.Mrs Kandara, too, made a list of the names of the people that she gave the money to, but this vanished from a drawer in her bedside table where she was keeping it when her house was raided over the weekend, she said.A team from the Police and the liquidators now in charge of Avid and Namangol Investments on Saturday staged a search-and-seizure operation at the Kandara home on the strength of a warrant that they obtained in terms of the Insolvency Act, the court was told.Mrs Kandara told the Acting Judge that it had barely been five or 10 minutes after Josea had left her house, before she got the first visitors: Blaauw and Podewiltz.She gave each of them N$40 000, and gave Blaauw an additional N$40 000, earmarked for Kapia.The next day, a Sunday, Podewiltz returned with Shiweda, who also got his N$40 000, she added.Her husband had told her it was a commission that they were getting, she said.Podewiltz also received another N$10 000 at a later stage, when her husband was again out of the country, she continued.That was around the end of April or early May, and she handed the money to Podewiltz after he had called her and they met at a supermarket in Hochland Park in Windhoek, she related.On March 30, Josea also paid a cheque of N$500 000 into Mrs Kandara’s cheque account, bank records before the court show.Mrs Kandara explained that her husband had access to her account and was in control of it, and that he had told her that Josea would be paying money – another commission, she was told – into that account, she explained.Mrs Kandara is set to continue testifying when the inquiry resumes on August 17.One of the questions she was asked when she was cross-examined by Kapia’s lawyer, Sisa Namandje, yesterday, was whether she actually knew, in the absence of a first name for the “Kapia”, which Kapia the money from Josea was meant for.Her answer drew a round of applause from the gallery: “What should I know which Kapia it is? From the newspapers we all know which Kapia it is.”Kapia will ask to be given another opportunity to give evidence, and will then tell the court that he did not receive any money, Namandje told Mrs Kandara just before the court adjourned.A burst of applause also came from the gallery when Acting Judge Heathcote adjourned the court.That applause was for a remark he made when he told the lawyers that, even though his appointment as an Acting Judge ended at the end of the month, the law states that he can continue to act in that capacity until he has finalised matters that he has been busy with.That is what he intended to do with the Avid-SSC inquiry, he said, telling the lawyers that he would not stop “until I’ve got to the bottom of this”.She pointed out Podewiltz in court, identified Blaauw from a photograph published on the front page of yesterday’s edition of The Namibian, and told the court that while she only knew money was meant for a certain Kapia, anyone would know from recent newspaper reports who that Kapia would have been.That same Kapia, Swapo Party Youth League Secretary and Deputy Works Minister Paulus Kapia, sat next to Podewiltz near the front of the courtroom as this evidence was unfolding in front of a rapt audience.After his surname had been mentioned the first time, and Mrs Kandara had gone on to mention it again and again thereafter, Kapia appeared to be sinking progressively lower in his chair.Next to him, Podewiltz shook his head at times, as if to indicate his disagreement with what Mrs Kandara was telling the court.Loud gasps came from the public gallery – as packed to capacity as it has been since Acting Judge Heathcote started his Companies Act inquiry two and a half weeks ago – when Mrs Kandara first mentioned three names: “Podewiltz”, “Ralph”, and “Shiweda”.A second set of gasps came seconds later, when Mrs Kandara added another name to her list: “Kapia”.Mrs Kandara is the wife of Lazarus Kandara, who was in charge of Avid Investment Corporation when the company – then barely half a year old – bagged a N$30 million investment deal from the SSC in late January.It was supposed to repay the money, plus a promised N$1,479 million in interest, to the SSC by late May.To date, it has been unable to do so. By the time that Avid landed the deal, Kapia and Sharon Blaauw, who is Ralph Blaauw’s wife, were on Avid’s board of directors.Podewiltz, who has told the court that he is the Ministry of Labour’s contact person for matters involving the SSC, was a former director.Depending on which documents from Avid were to be taken as correct, retired Namibia Defence Force Brigadier Mathias Shiweda could also have been a director of Avid at that stage, or he might only have joined the board at a later stage.So far during the inquiry, Acting Judge Heathcote has heard that the SSC transferred N$30 million to Avid on January 26.On January 28, Kandara ordered Avid’s bankers to transfer N$29,5 million to the account of another asset management company, Namangol Investments.From there, the money started going in different directions, including more than a million dollars that was transferred into the personal account of Nico Josea, the Chief Executive Officer of Namangol Investments.According to Mrs Kandara, her husband phoned her from Johannesburg on a Saturday morning some time in February or March – that would obviously have been shortly after the SSC’s money had found its way into the bank accounts of Namangol Investments and Josea – to tell her that Josea would be visiting her.When Josea arrived at her house, he had a document with him that he asked her to sign.Then he handed over money to her – either N$220 000 or N$240 000 in all, she testified.By then, Lazarus Kandara had already told her what to do with the money, she told the court.She was supposed to give the money to “certain people”, she continued, starting to cite names only when pressed on it.The recipients were to be Podewiltz, Ralph and Shiweda, she said.Her husband had asked her to give each of them N$40 000, she added.He also told her to give an additional N$40 000 to Ralph – whom she identified as Ralph Blaauw – who had to give that extra amount to Kapia.Josea told the court on Tuesday that he was looking for a list of names, with figures written next to them, that Kandara had left in his office once.The list consisted of the names “Tuli”, next to which was written 250 000, “Mulder”, with 150 000 next to it, “the group”, with 180 000 next to it, and “the office”, with a figure in the region of three hundred thousand-plus next to it, Josea had told the court.Earlier, Josea had testified that Kandara asked to be given back N$3,2 million of the money that Avid had transferred to Namangol Investments.On Tuesday, Josea told the court that he was looking for that piece of paper because he wanted to show to the court that money that was given to Kandara was also given to those people.Having heard Mrs Kandara tell the court that a total of N$160 000 was supposed to be given to Kapia, Blaauw, Podewiltz and Shiweda, Acting Judge Heathcote promptly asked SSC counsel Andrew Corbett what had been on that list again.It had been 180 000 for “the group”, but perhaps they had been short-changed in the end, Corbett answered.Mrs Kandara, too, made a list of the names of the people that she gave the money to, but this vanished from a drawer in her bedside table where she was keeping it when her house was raided over the weekend, she said.A team from the Police and the liquidators now in charge of Avid and Namangol Investments on Saturday staged a search-and-seizure operation at the Kandara home on the strength of a warrant that they obtained in terms of the Insolvency Act, the court was told.Mrs Kandara told the Acting Judge that it had barely been five or 10 minutes after Josea had left her house, before she got the first visitors: Blaauw and Podewiltz.She gave each of them N$40 000, and gave Blaauw an additional N$40 000, earmarked for Kapia.The next day, a Sunday, Podewiltz returned with Shiweda, who also got his N$40 000, she added.Her husband had told her it was a commission that they were getting, she said.Podewiltz also received another N$10 000 at a later stage, when her husband was again out of the country, she continued.That was around the end of April or early May, and she handed the money to Podewiltz after he had called her and they met at a supermarket in Hochland Park in Windhoek, she related.On March 30, Josea also paid a cheque of N$500 000 into Mrs Kandara’s cheque account, bank records before the court show.Mrs Kandara explained that her husband had access to her account and was in control of it, and that he had told her that Josea would be paying money – another commission, she was told – into that account, she explained.Mrs Kandara is set to continue testifying when the inquiry resumes on August 17.One of the questions she was asked when she was cross-examined by Kapia’s lawyer, Sisa Namandje, yesterday, was whether she actually knew, in the absence of a first name for the “Kapia”, which Kapia the money from Josea was meant for.Her answer drew a round of applause from the gallery: “What should I know which Kapia it is? From the newspapers we all know which Kapia it is.”Kapia will ask to be given another opportunity to give evidence, and will then tell the court that he did not receive any money, Namandje told Mrs Kandara just before the court adjourned.A burst of applause also came from the gallery when Acting Judge Heathcote adjourned the court.That applause was for a remark he made when he told the lawyers that, even though his appointment as an Acting Judge ended at the end of the month, the law states that he can continue to act in that capacity until he has finalised matters that he has been busy with.That is what he intended to do with the Avid-SSC inquiry, he said, telling the lawyers that he would not stop “until I’ve got to the bottom of this”.