NBC finances feature high in Munyama’s court trial

THE financial dire straits the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has been experiencing for years were placed under the spotlight again yesterday during the trial of its former boss, Gerry Munyama.

Testifying on behalf of the State in the High Court in Windhoek, former NBC Board chairman Uazuva Kaumbi said during his term, which lapsed in May 2005, Cabinet had to come to the national broadcaster’s rescue with a N$100 million bailout.This came after Munyama’s lawyer, Boris Isaacks, asked Kaumbi during cross-examination whether it was true that during 2004/2005, the NBC was about N$20 million in the red with First National Bank (FNB). Kaumbi, who battled to remember dates and amounts while testifying, said he could not confirm the exact amount but that an overdraft was part of the operations of the NBC.It further emerged during the cross-examination of an earlier State witness, Ruben Prinz, that at times the organisation’s administrative operations were also in shambles.Prinz is a former general manager for technical services of the NBC.Munyama told the High Court on Monday that he had found the NBC ‘in a critical financial situation’ when he was appointed as director general (DG) in January 2003. ‘Due to the critical financial position of NBC, I had several meetings with FNB, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Finance regarding the overdraft facility at FNB,’ he said.During these meetings, he ‘got the impression that all the revenue to be generated by NBC would be set off against the main account of NBC’, Munyama said.According to the former DG, ‘this prompted him to open another bank account with Standard Bank’.He said: ‘I wanted to channel money received on behalf of NBC away from the overdraft account at FNB and use this money for operational expenditures such as travelling of the news crew outside Namibia.’He admitted that he opened this account with a forged board resolution printed on an official NBC letterhead which ostensibly authorised to do so. Kaumbi yesterday afternoon confirmed that Munyama had no authority to open that account. Munyama was arrested on November 28 2005 and released on bail of N$20 000 the next day. His co-accused, Engelbrecht Theodor, was arrested on November 8 2007 and released the next day on bail of N$5 000.The two are accused of one charge of fraud each, while Munyama was also charged with one count each of forgery and uttering. The trial before Judge Kato van Niekerk continues. Theodor is represented by Gerson Hinda.

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