MALADMINISTRATION and the misappropriation of resources have led to the dismissal of the entire Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) board by the minister of sport, youth and national service, Agnes Tjongarero, on Tuesday.
Tjongarero wielded the axe on the eight-member board under the chairmanship of Joel Matheus “on account of deliberate insubordination and ignoring directives from the appointing authority, as well as a directive from the office of the attorney general”.
Erica Beukes, Alna Similo, Karen Mubonenwa, Thomas Mbeeli, Marius Johannes, Nicklaus Ngumono, and Linda Chicalu are the other NSC board members.
The ignored directives include the board’s refusal to advertise the chief administrators’ (CA) position, currently held by the out-of-contract Freddy Mwiya, and to reverse the unauthorised inflation of his salary and that of the sport commission’s executive head of finance, Junias Hamalua.
Additionally, the board was reportedly fired for turning a blind eye to an elaborate scheme through which large sums of funds have been syphoned off or misused.
These alleged transgressions are contained in damning findings of rampant corruption uncovered by Tjongarero’s ministerial investigation committee into the affairs of the troubled national sport-governing body.
The investigation was conducted from 24 January to 14 March this year.
Mwiya and Hamalua are said to be the central figures of the scheme.
Both denied all allegations levelled against them in a recorded interview with The Namibian in March, while Matheus twice ignored questions sent to him at the time.
Along with the ministerial investigation report, The Namibian made use of a whistleblower’s dossier to piece together the purported irregularities at the NSC.
The whistleblower alerted the police and the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service to the malpractices at the NSC in August 2021.
The ministerial committee’s report flagged the operational set-up at the sport commission, which allows for several questionable practices to go unchecked.
On 11 October 2021, Tjongarero directed the commissioners to investigate allegations of corruption at the NSC, the senior executives’ contract renewals and a sex scandal. This instruction was ignored by the commissioners.
The NSC reportedly has four bank accounts held at Bank Windhoek but “only one (main account 8000235061) meets the requirements of the Sport Act and has ministerial endorsement”.
The NSC’s transactional account (8021572476) is in the name of Hamalua, with the operational account (8007937252) under NSC finance officer Shareen Mutalife’s name, while a third account is attributed to “a certain E S Namieia who is not known at the Commission nor is that person an employee of the Commission.”
Furthermore, funds are allegedly diverted from the commission’s FNB account primarily meant for sponsorships to the earlier mentioned accounts “citing as a refund to the NSC but [there are] no records”.
The transactional account shows activity of unaccounted for transactions amounting to N$793 398,03 between April 2021 – December 2021. Similarly, N$510 000 was transferred from the main account to the operational account on 22 April /2021 for an unspecified purpose.
“We call it environmenting. We would divert money for certain urgent events, so we would environment it and when you get money the following month you add extra surplus,” Mwiya said.
Tjongarero had reported the matter to the ACC in 2021, said the Sport Ministry’s executive director’s office when queried about why it has taken over a year for action to be taken the serious accusations.
“With regards to the allegations that the matter was not acted upon by the Ministry, in fact the. The ACC wrote to say that the allegations do not warrant direct corruption investigation. The Minister then appointed an internal ministerial committee to investigate the veracity of the allegations. This is ongoing. The Minister will take action as and when necessary” the ED’s office stated.
The minister’s probe also uncovered that the NSC executives have been non-compliant with the stipulated procurement procedure by making use of service providers “not in good standing with Social Security Commission, BIPA, Employment and Equity Commission. This created suspicions in terms of favouritism”.
“In the past, the executives used to channel money into the receptionist private bank account and they call her to send such monies via easy-wallets and also direct her to withdraw and give the whole cash to them without signing of any documents. A practice the receptionist halted by closing her account and refused to open it again upon executives’ demand on several occasions,” said the whistleblower.
UNTOUCHABLE
The NSC has been found to be operating with a non-valid human resources an financial policy and regulations, while the unapproved salary increment for NSC executives remains a thorny issue.
The Namibian has previously reported that Mwiya’s remuneration package rose from N$753 000 annually to over N$1,2 million on 1 April 2018.
Mwiya’s bumper salary increase to N$1,2 million per annum was done without the approval from the sports, finance and public enterprises ministries, as required by relevant legislation.
During the same period, Hamalua’s package was also increased by about N$400 000, from N$464 000 to N$861 215 a year.
Mwiya is fighting to retain his position after his term of office ended on 31 March. The board ignored Tjongarero’s instruction to advertise the position. Instead, the board extended Mwiya’s stay in an acting capacity with full benefits “until such time the matter regarding your condition of re-appointment is resolved”.
