Shortage of manpower hampering PG’s office

THE slow grind of the wheels of justice can not be expected to improve while the legal system is over-burdened with petty criminal cases and there are only eight senior state prosecutors to deal with all High and Supreme Court cases, including all appeals emanating from the about 47 lower courts, says Prosecutor General Martha Imalwa.

Imalwa was reacting to criticism last week that her office was slow in bringing white-collar crime cases to justice, creating a perception that corruption in Namibia remained unpunished.Two of eight State prosecutors have been permanently assigned to the Caprivi Treason Trial (now in its sixth year), she pointed out.From 2007 to date, 215 cases of corruption had been referred to her office by the ACC and the Police for a decision, of which 115 will be prosecuted while 19 cases were declined. Six have been dealt with in court, while the balance (of 75 cases) was referred back for further investigation, she said.This did not include high-profile cases like the Avid Investment and the Off-shore Development (ODC) embezzlements nor the Roads Contractor Company scandal.The Avid Investment case faces a constitutional challenge by some of the accused, while the Roads Contractor Company (RCC) case could be expected to be finalised by the end of this month, she said.However, a perusal of past reports showed that the same undertaking was given in July last year, when the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) handed the docket over to the PG’s office for a decision.As for the Offshore Development case, where N$101,8 million was embezzled via a Botswana-based investment firm (Great Triangle Investments), this was one of the cases that will not be prosecuted under the Anti-Corruption Act, it emerged from the interview.’This is more fraud… [the investigation has] been going on before the ACC came into being,’ under a now-repealed 1928 Ordinance on Corruption, Imalwa said.This also applied to the Telecom-Dresselhaus scrap copper case, she said.Imalwa agreed that making an example of some of the accused ‘who acted out of greed’ would put a brake on graft and corruption, but stressed that the PG’s office was constrained both by often clumsy legislation and a shortage of experienced prosecutors. Imalwa also emphasised that an over-burdened legal system, overseen by only eight advocates in her office, was finding it difficult to cope with the demands of prosecuting complicated, white-collar criminal cases.This was particularly true of the ODC case, in which N$101,8 million was embezzled via a maze of companies that were all allegedly collapsed by South Africans Philip Fourie and Tertius Theart soon after they apparently received the money from the ODC’s managers.’This investigation is now complete, but it is now for my Office to work on the case,’ she said. It could not be expected to make it to court this year, she indicated. But many of the cases referred by the ACC amounted to petty crimes – such as driving a Government car without authorisation – that should rather be dealt with spot fines, she suggested. More training was needed for police investigators, and her office was in the process of drafting a memorandum of understanding with NamPol to expedite this, she said.* John Grobler is a freelance journalist.