Tour operator sues ex-employee for N$1,2 million over building supplies

A FORMER employee of tourism operator Wilderness Safaris is the target in a N$1,2 million lawsuit after he allegedly defrauded his employer by making it pay for goods it did not need or never received.
A default judgement of N$1 207 283,24 was granted against former Wilderness Safaris logis-tics co-ordinator Roland Coleman in the High Court on Friday.

Coleman failed to defend the case that Namib Lodge Company, which trades as tour operator Wilderness Safaris Namibia, lodged against him in early March. As a result, Acting Judge Hosea Angula granted the judgement against him without any opposition.When contacted by telephone yesterday, Cole-man claimed he was not aware that a judgement had been granted against him.He acknowledged that court documents had been served on him, but said as he understood it the purpose of that was to get a record of his assets. He said he was still waiting to see what the next step in the proceedings was going to be.Coleman declined giving his response to the allegations made against him in the documents filed with the High Court.In Namib Lodge Company’s claim against him, it is alleged that during 2007 and 2008 Coleman defrauded the company by knowingly placing orders with various suppliers for the purchase of goods that were not required by the company or that were not necessary for its operations. The company also claimed that while placing these orders, the intention was that the ordered goods would not be delivered to the company.The result of this, it was claimed, was that during 2007 and 2008 Namib Lodge Company paid N$1 207 283,24 to various suppliers for goods never delivered to it.The company charged that this was the result of Coleman having embezzled or stolen the goods that were bought by it.Coleman was employed with Wilderness Safaris from May 2007 to March 2008.After his employment with the company came to an unhappy end, chartered accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers Namibia were asked to investigate the possible irregularities that Coleman is being blamed for.In an affidavit by Gerrit Jordaan, PWC’s Senior Manager: Risk Advisory Services, the court was informed that the alleged irregularities were primarily connected to the buying of building materials for building projects of Wilderness Safaris.According to Jordaan the investigation was launched after it appeared that a large quantity of building materials that had been ordered from suppliers in Windhoek and paid for by Namib Lodge Company were never delivered or used for building projects that Wilderness Safaris was busy with at the time.The allegedly missing building materials consisted mainly of cement, roofing material and wood.Jordaan stated that his investigations established that Coleman, who was responsible for the issuing of orders for the pur-chase of the building materials, ‘was involved in transactions which appear to be fraudulent, alternatively to be irregular purchases of goods’.Where it could not be proven that all suspicious purchases that have been identified were outright fraudulent, Coleman could still be held liable for his former employer’s alleged losses because he acted in breach of his contractual obligations towards his employer, Jordaan claimed.He stated that criminal charges have been laid against Coleman, and that these are still being investigated.According to Jordaan, purchases made by Coleman which appear to have been fraudulent involve a total amount of N$727 135. Purchases which were not necessarily fraudulent but have been identified as being irregular transactions for which Coleman could be held liable, involve a total amount of N$480 147, Jordaan informed the court.Reinhard Tötemeyer, instructed by Ulrich Etzold, represented Namib Lodge Company in its case against Coleman.