NDF fraud case stalls – again

THE Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday allowed the State to get away with yet another postponement in an almost four-year-old and still-pending case over the alleged embezzlement of N$7,3 million from the Namibia Defence Force and Sanlam Namibia.

The world was quite a different place in mid-December 2000, when the first arrests were carried out in the case that returned once more to the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Saddam Hussein was still firmly in power in Iraq, Laurent Kabila was alive and ruling over the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Angola the death of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi still lay more than two years in the future.In the United States of America, President Bill Clinton was counting down the days to the end of his time in power and the term 9/11 would still have meant nothing to anyone.Today, the end of the first term in office of Clinton’s successor is already in sight and the world has seen some monumental changes in the past four years but for the suspects involved in the long-delayed fraud case that was called in Magistrate Maria Mahalie’s courtroom yesterday, the world has not changed much in one respect at least.Three years and eight months after the first of the 24 suspects in the case were arrested, their case is still not ready for trial, they heard with their latest court appearance.The 24 are charged with fraud, accused of having played a part in an alleged fraud scheme in which an estimated N$7,3 million in death benefit pay-outs was falsely claimed from the Namibia Defence Force and Sanlam Namibia between January 1998 and December 2000.Delays and repeated postponements have marked their case.Yesterday was no exception.Public Prosecutor Karin van Wyk told the Magistrate that she had instructions to ask for a further remand in the matter because the Office of the Prosecutor General had given instructions yesterday that a host of further investigations would have to be done before the PG would decide on the course of the prosecution of the 24.Defence counsel involved in the case strongly objected to her request.Francois Erasmus, who is representing the first accused, Emmanuel Kapumba Mununga, pointed out to the Magistrate that the case had been withdrawn once already, in May 2002, because progress had not been made at that stage.He asked Magistrate Mahalie to halt the case so that the State could again summon the suspects to court “in three or four years’ time when it is eventually ready with its case”.Mununga was a personnel officer in the Ministry of Defence at the time the alleged fraud was committed.He is accused of being a key figure in the fraud scheme in which he allegedly submitted and processed false claims for the paying of death benefits for NDF members who were supposed to have died, in the process allegedly pocketing millions of Namibia dollars which are claimed to have been channelled through the bank accounts of his co-accused.Erasmus received full backing from fellow defence lawyers.Anyone who reads the record of the case so far would be shocked over the way it had been postponed until now; it was a mockery of the justice system, Sisa Namandje charged.Louis du Pisani described it as an abuse of the court process, aimed at ensuring that the people accused in the case would remain on suspension from their jobs in the NDF and would not have to be reinstated as long as the case remained pending.Van Wyk, replying to these remarks, told the Magistrate that when the case returns to court a decision from the PG would be available.The Magistrate was swayed.While saying that she understood the frustration of the defence and accused persons, she added that her court did not have the jurisdiction to now have the matter against the 24 withdrawn or to stop the proceedings against them.The State would have to be given a chance to prepare to prove its case against the 24, but it would be a final postponement for the PG’s decision, she stated.The 24 suspects remain free following this latest delay.They have to return to court on November 26.Saddam Hussein was still firmly in power in Iraq, Laurent Kabila was alive and ruling over the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Angola the death of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi still lay more than two years in the future.In the United States of America, President Bill Clinton was counting down the days to the end of his time in power and the term 9/11 would still have meant nothing to anyone.Today, the end of the first term in office of Clinton’s successor is already in sight and the world has seen some monumental changes in the past four years but for the suspects involved in the long-delayed fraud case that was called in Magistrate Maria Mahalie’s courtroom yesterday, the world has not changed much in one respect at least.Three years and eight months after the first of the 24 suspects in the case were arrested, their case is still not ready for trial, they heard with their latest court appearance.The 24 are charged with fraud, accused of having played a part in an alleged fraud scheme in which an estimated N$7,3 million in death benefit pay-outs was falsely claimed from the Namibia Defence Force and Sanlam Namibia between January 1998 and December 2000.Delays and repeated postponements have marked their case.Yesterday was no exception.Public Prosecutor Karin van Wyk told the Magistrate that she had instructions to ask for a further remand in the matter because the Office of the Prosecutor General had given instructions yesterday that a host of further investigations would have to be done before the PG would decide on the course of the prosecution of the 24.Defence counsel involved in the case strongly objected to her request.Francois Erasmus, who is representing the first accused, Emmanuel Kapumba Mununga, pointed out to the Magistrate that the case had been withdrawn once already, in May 2002, because progress had not been made at that stage.He asked Magistrate Mahalie to halt the case so that the State could again summon the suspects to court “in three or four years’ time when it is eventually ready with its case”.Mununga was a personnel officer in the Ministry of Defence at the time the alleged fraud was committed.He is accused of being a key figure in the fraud scheme in which he allegedly submitted and processed false claims for the paying of death benefits for NDF members who were supposed to have died, in the process allegedly pocketing millions of Namibia dollars which are claimed to have been channelled through the bank accounts of his co-accused.Erasmus received full backing from fellow defence lawyers.Anyone who reads the record of the case so far would be shocked over the way it had been postponed until now; it was a mockery of the justice system, Sisa Namandje charged.Louis du Pisani described it as an abuse of the court process, aimed at ensuring that the people accused in the case would remain on suspension from their jobs in the NDF and would not have to be reinstated as long as the case remained pending.Van Wyk, replying to these remarks, told the Magistrate that when the case returns to court a decision from the PG would be available.The Magistrate was swayed.While saying that she understood the frustration of the defence and accused persons, she added that her court did not have the jurisdiction to now have the matter against the 24 withdrawn or to stop the proceedings against them.The State would have to be given a chance to prepare to prove its case against the 24, but it would be a final postponement for the PG’s decision, she stated.The 24 suspects remain free following this latest delay.They have to return to court on November 26.