A FORMER marketing manager of MultiChoice Namibia is set to have her husband by her side in the dock when she goes on trial in the Windhoek High Court on a total of 166 charges, including 80 counts of fraud.
This comes after the prosecutor general communicated her decision in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Friday to have former MultiChoice Namibia employee Manga Nawa-Mukena prosecuted in the High Court, along with her husband, Joseph Mukena, and a third accused, Celestino Gabriel Antonio.
Nawa-Mukena was arrested on charges of fraud, forgery, and uttering in early July last year. Antonio was also arrested and charged in November last year.
On Friday, Joseph Mukena was added to the case as the third accused, after the prosecutor general decided that the couple and Antonio should stand trial in the Windhoek High Court on 166 charges.
The charges stem from allegations that Nawa-Mukena, while employed as marketing manager of MultiChoice Namibia, defrauded the company from 1 April 2013 to 17 March 2017 by falsifying invoices for advertisements in the Oshiwambo newspaper Kundana, published by state-owned New Era Publication Corporation.
The state alleges that she falsified 80 invoices for advertisements in Kundana while knowing that the newspaper did not provide advertising to MultiChoice Namibia. It is also alleged that she presented the forged invoices to MultiChoice for payment, and provided her own bank account number as that of Kundana, with the result that MultiChoice Namibia paid more than N$2,08 million into her account for the supposed advertisements in the newspaper.
The three accused were informed on Friday that Nawa-Mukena will be prosecuted on 80 counts of fraud, 81 counts of forgery and uttering of a forged document, and one charge in terms of the Value-Added Tax Act, which is based on an allegation that she used the VAT registration number of New Era Publication Corporation on the alleged forged invoices presented to MultiChoice Namibia for payment.
In addition to those charges, Nawa-Mukena and Joseph Mukena will jointly face two charges under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.
One of those charges is a count of money laundering, flowing from an allegation that Mukena withdrew money from the account into which MultiChoice Namibia had made payments.
The prosecutor general has also decided to indict the couple and Antonio on a further charge of forgery and uttering of a forged document, and a count of obstructing or defeating the course of justice.
The couple and Antonio have to make a first pretrial appearance in the Windhoek High Court on 21 June.
Nawa-Mukena and Antonio are both free on bail of N$50 000, while Joseph Mukena is free on a warning from the court.
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