Six accused in Namcor fraud case remain in custody five more weeks

Six of the accused in the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) fraud and corruption case face a further five weeks in custody before they can expect to hear if they have been granted bail.

This is after magistrate Linus Samunzala on Friday postponed the delivery of his ruling at the end of a protracted bail hearing in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court to 26 September.

Samunzala postponed his ruling after the public prosecutor and defence lawyers involved in the hearing concluded their closing arguments in a bail application that started six weeks ago.

During the hearing and in their arguments, defence lawyers representing the six applicants have attacked the charges against the accused, labelling them as “weak”, “half-cooked”, “bad”, “chaotic” and “pathetic”, public prosecutor Basson Lilungwe recounted in his address to the court on Friday.

Lilungwe argued that the defence lawyers have focused on the charges against the accused, instead of focusing on whether the six accused are good candidates for bail.Arguments that the charges are weak because they originate from a commercial dispute that should be dealt with in a civil court are “neither here nor there”, Lilungwe argued, adding there was nothing that stopped a party from pursuing a case in both a civil and criminal court.

“This is an economic crime that affects the whole country at large,” he said.

Lilungwe continued that according to Anti-Corruption Commission investigator Oberty Inambao, who testified as a state witness during the hearing, an amount of about N$400 million is estimated to have been embezzled from the state-owned Namcor through the crimes the accused are charged with.

“These are state funds that could have been used to develop the country,” he said.

“The seriousness of the charges and the likelihood of long terms of imprisonment being imposed might be an incentive for the accused persons to abscond [if granted bail],” Lilungwe argued.

He also argued that the case is still being investigated and the likelihood of interference with investigations would be high if the accused were to be released on bail.

The six accused applying for bail before Samunzala are former Namcor managing director Imms Mulunga, businessman brothers Peter and Malakia Elindi, former Namcor employees Jennifer Hamukwaya and Olivia Dunaiski, and Leo Nandago.

They have been held in custody since being arrested about seven weeks ago.

Malakia was not present in court during the hearing of oral arguments on Friday. His defence lawyer, Sisa Namandje, informed the magistrate that Malakia was ill and had been admitted to a private hospital in Windhoek.

Two of the accused in the case – Lydia Elindi, who is married to Malakia, and Connie van Wyk – have been released on bail in an amount of N$50 000 each.

The state is claiming that the accused were involved in fraud, corruption and other offences allegedly committed when the fuel company Enercon Namibia sold filling station assets at Namibian Defence Force bases to a Namcor subsidiary, Namcor Petroleum Trading and Distribution, for N$53.2 million in July 2022.

The state is also alleging that Namcor was defrauded when Enercon and another fuel firm, the close corporation Erongo Petroleum, bought fuel products from Namcor, exceeded their credit limits with the company and failed to pay for the products they had bought.

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