The hearing of bail appeals filed by six of the accused charged in the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) fraud and corruption case is scheduled to take place in the Windhoek High Court in four weeks’ time.
An appeal hearing was scheduled to take place before judges Eileen Rakow and Philanda Christiaan yesterday, but it did not proceed. The judges have rescheduled the hearing for 12 and 13 February.
Rakow and Christiaan also set deadlines by when lawyers representing the accused and the state have to file written arguments and applications to have the late filing of some documents with the court condoned.
The six appellants are former Namcor managing director Imms Mulunga, businessmen Peter and Malakia Elindi, former Namcor managers Jennifer Hamukwaya and Olivia Dunaiski, and Leo Nandago.
They are appealing against a judgement delivered in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court near the end of September last year, following a drawn-out bail hearing that started near the middle of July.
In his judgement, magistrate Linus Samunzala dismissed applications by the six accused to be granted bail, after finding that they had failed to show to the court that they were good candidates for bail.
Samunzala concluded that although it was not shown to the court that they were likely to flee or interfere with state witnesses or the investigation of their case if released on bail, in his view it was not in the public interest or interest of the administration of justice for the six accused to be granted bail.
He also remarked that the accused, with the exception of Dunaiski, “contradicted themselves in material respects, both in their evidence in chief and during cross-examination as well as on affidavit and submission in respect of [Leo Nandago]”.
Samunzala added: “Their evidence was riddled with material contradictions and falsehood.”
The state is claiming that the accused were involved in fraud, corruption and other offences allegedly committed when the fuel company Enercon Namibia, of which Peter and Malakia were shareholders, sold filling station assets at Namibian Defence Force bases to a Namcor subsidiary, Namcor Petroleum Trading and Distribution, for N$53.2 million in July 2022.
The state is also alleging that Namcor was defrauded when Enercon and another fuel firm, the close corporation Erongo Petroleum, bought fuel products from Namcor, exceeded their credit limits with the company and failed to pay for the products they had bought.
The six accused have been held in custody since being arrested in July last year.
Lydia Elindi, who is married to Malakia, and Connie van Wyk, former chief executive of Enercon Namibia, have been released on bail in an amount of N$50 000 each after they were also arrested and charged.
A second bail hearing, in which former Namcor manager Cedric Willemse applied to be granted bail, started in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in September. Willemse’s bail hearing ended on 28 October, when he was granted bail in an amount of N$200 000.
The case in which the accused are charged in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court has been postponed to 19 March.
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