Prosecutor general (PG) Martha Imalwa’s office has rejected allegations that she has been delaying attending to high-profile cases submitted by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
The PG’s office has, however, confirmed that some high-profile cases, like the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) case and the national fuel storage facility saga, are indeed with her office.
A report titled ‘98 ACC cases parked at PG’, published in The Namibian on Friday, quotes ACC director general Paulus Noa, who confirmed the number of cases referred to the Office of the Prosecutor General.
That report says cases which should be among those at the Office of the Prosecutor General since 2016, include the SME Bank matter (involving N$247 million), the Agro-Marketing and Trade Agency (Amta) case (involving N$57million), the NAC case (N$360 million), and the matter of the national fuel storage facility, which was built for N$5 billion.
Imalwa says Friday’s report contained inaccurate information, since one of the cases was returned to the ACC, while others are “complex” matters that are being dealt with by her office.
Her office issued a statement issued on Friday, threatening to take legal action against The Namibian.
It says Imalwa’s office “reserves all rights in pursuing appropriate legal remedies”.
The report, according to the PGs office, “contains material inaccuracies and unsubstantiated assertions which have been widely disseminated to the public and need immediate correction, as they unfairly impugn the integrity and performance of this office”.
The statement also clarified the NAC case involving corruption allegations over the awarding of tenders worth over N$360 million.
It implicates former NAC chief executive Tamer El-Kallawi and engineering department boss Courage Silombela.
The PG’s office says: “This is a complex matter that is with the OPG.
The previously assigned advocate resigned at the end of August 2025, henceforth, the matter is to be reassigned to a new state advocate who will need to study the entirety of the case load and as such needs time”.
According to the office, “the SME Bank, this case is not with the OPG and is not investigated by the ACC. It is a Nampol investigation. Any suggestion that the ACC director handles matters is factually incorrect”.
Last year, the Supreme Court ordered that documents recording the large-scale looting of Namibia’s ill-fated SME Bank should be provided to the PG.
The court made the order in a judgement in which it found that a key figure in the SME Bank case, Zimbabwean national Enock Kamushinda, and employees in the bank’s finance department looted the bank on a massive scale before the Bank of Namibia took control of it in March 2017.
On the national oil storage facility at Walvis Bay, Imalwa’s office says “this matter is under active consideration by the OPG’s specialised anti-corruption unit”.
The former National Planning Commission’s permanent secretary, Leevi Hungamo, and the ex-chief legal adviser in the attorney general’s office, Chris Nghaamwa, were accused in this case.
The two were found not guilty after a government-sanctioned disciplinary hearing.
The case involves the construction of a national oil storage facility at Walvis Bay, which at the time of awarding was estimated to cost N$800 million, but this has ballooned to N$5.6 billion.
The contract was awarded to a joint venture called CRB, co-owned by China Harbour Engineering Company and Babyface Civils (Pty) Limited.
Imalwa’s office said the Chinese medical tender matter was with her office, but that “the file was returned to the ACC for further investigation with specific directives”.
The case involved an investigation into a shipping container packed with co-trimoxazole, which is commonly used to treat bacterial infections, mostly among people living with HIV-AIDS.
The container from China was impounded at Walvis Bay in around 2019 after the Namibia Medicines Regulatory Council rejected the medicine because of a lack of import documentation.
The medicine, worth N$8.1 million, which is still with the ACC, has since passed its expiry date.
An investigation by the Ministry of Finance implicated Fabiola Vahekeni, the ministry of health’s senior pharmacist responsible for procurement at the Central Medical Stores, and pharmacists-cum-businesswomen Naambo Amakutuwa and Meameno Nghikembua.
The PG’s office says it has no knowledge of the Amta case as no docket or criminal file was ever submitted.
“The routine cases between investigative bodies and prosecutors, including instances where matters are returned for further investigation, is standard and an essential safeguard to ensure only sound, prosecutable cases proceed to court,” the statement says.
‘NO PRESSURE’
Imalwa’s office insists that decisions on prosecutions are taken on the basis of law and evidence, not pressure.
“This is considering the fact that the Office of the PG is endowed to make informed decisions on substantive law and evidence and not just rushed decisions based on personalities.”
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