Namugongo tells court he ‘rebuffed’ bribe bid

A PAYMENT of N$10 000 that a State witness in his corruption trial deposited in his bank account in mid-2006 was part of a failed attempt to bribe him, former Ministry of Environment and Tourism official Sackey Namugongo claimed in the Windhoek Regional Court this week.

Namugongo yesterday completed his testimony in his own defence in the trial in which he is denying guilt on 20 counts of corruption, alternatively theft, and 20 counts of fraud, alternatively forgery and uttering.His defence lawyer, Titus Mbaeva, and Deputy Prosecutor General Orben Sibeya are set to address Magistrate Sarel Jacobs on Friday with their final arguments on the judgement that is set to be delivered in the trial.Namugongo (57) is accused of having corruptly received more than N$330 000 from people who applied with him to be issued with gambling house licences.At the time this allegedly happened from March to September 2006, Namugongo was a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and a freeze on the issuing of gambling house licences had been in place since early 1997.Namugongo claimed in his testimony this week that despite this moratorium on the issuing of gambling house licences, the then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Dr Malan Lindeque, instructed him to still accept applications for gambling house licences. The applications would then have been processed and licences issued once the moratorium was lifted, he said.During the trial, 17 State witnesses told the Magistrate that they submitted applications for gambling house licences to Namugongo, and in the process also paid a total of N$332 500 in supposed licence fees to him.Of this total amount, N$43 000 was paid into a bank account of Namugongo, while the remaining N$289 500 was handed over to Namugongo in cash, the witnesses claimed.Namugongo told the court that none of the alleged cash payments to him ever took place. The deposits into this bank account, for which documentary proof exists, were admitted by him – but for each of these payments he also had an explanation to offer.State witness Petrus Shambo told the court that he handed N$15 000 in cash to Namugongo in the latter’s office at the Ministry on July 11 2006. Because Namugongo had told him that the licence application fee he had to pay was N$25 000, he thereafter paid an additional N$10 000 into Namugongo’s bank account that same day, Shambo told the court.Namugongo only admitted the payment into this bank account.He also admitted that Shambo had submitted a licence application to him.Shambo later called him on the telephone and told him that he had also paid N$10 000 into his account, with that payment meant to help speed up the licence issuing process, Namugongo testified.He said he thought Shambo was trying to bribe him or set him up, and he then told Shambo that he did not work that way and that Shambo had to collect the money from him.Later that day Shambo’s wife came to his office and he gave her N$10 000, Namugongo said.Under cross-examination from Sibeya yesterday he at first told the court that he did not have a large amount of money – such as N$15 000, or N$10 000, or even N$5 000 – with him in his office on the day that he said Shambo’s wife came to pick up the N$10 000.As Sibeya continued with his questioning, pointing out that according to Namugongo’s bank statements he also did not withdraw N$10 000 from his account after Shambo had deposited the alleged attempted bribe into the account, Namugongo told the court that he in fact withdrew N$5 000 from the account and added to that another N$5 000, which he received on the same day for outside work he was doing for a businessman in the south of Namibia, in order to hand the N$10 000 to Shambo’s wife.A deposit of N$20 000 that State witness Petrus Hangula made into his account on June 19 2006 was assistance that he received from Hangula because he needed that money to pay a deposit on a bakkie he was buying at that time, Namugongo said.He told the court that Hangula was a friend of his late uncle, and he had a good relationship with him.Hangula however told the court that the N$20 000 that he paid into Namugongo’s account was the fee he was told to pay for his gambling house licence application.That was not so, Namugongo said. He added that he did not know why Hangula would have told the court that the N$20 000 was a payment for a gambling house licence, and not assistance that he gave to Namugongo to pay the deposit on the vehicle purchase.Going through Namugongo’s bank account statement, Sibeya pointed out to Namugongo that in the days after the N$20 000 deposit had been made Namugongo used the money to go shopping at the Game store in Windhoek, to buy goods at a tyre dealer in Windhoek, and that he made cash withdrawals from his account – while no transaction indicated as a vehicle deposit is reflected on the statement.Having previously told the court that he used the money for a car deposit, Namugongo then told the court that Game is a public store where anybody had a right to shop. It was his prerogative to use the N$20 000 the way he saw fit, he said.Three other deposits, totalling N$13 000, that were made into Namugongo’s bank account in April and August 2006 were also admitted by him. This money came from State witness Fillimon Erastus, who told the court that the N$13 000 was part of a total of N$60 000 that he paid to Namugongo in gambling house licence application fees.According to Namugongo, though, the N$13 000 was a loan to him, which he still has to repay. He denied having received N$60 000 from Erastus.He said Erastus is a good friend of his and also a political comrade.When Sibeya asked Namugongo why Erastus would then have falsely implicated him in his testimony in court, Namugongo answered: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’Namugongo is remaining free on bail.