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By Sonja Smith | 20 October 2022 FORMER mines minister Obeth Kandjoze misled the Anti-Corruption Commission on how he appointed a company to evaluate Namdia diamonds – a deal that enriched three politically connected individuals with around N$130 million. This is according to a confidential investigation report submitted to president Hage Geingob in February 2018. The National Planning Commission director general has denied any wrongdoing and threatened to sue The Namibian. Kandjoze, who is now campaigning for prime minister Saara-Kuugongelwa Amadhila’s Swapo’s vice presidency contest, had a controversial three-year stint as mines minister.In 2016, he was involved in setting up the state-owned Namibia Desert Diamonds (Namdia) with former attorney general Sacky Shanghala. That same year, Kandjoze hand-picked a politically connected company C Sixty Investments owned by Shanghala’s associate John Walenga and a...

By Tileni Mongudh, Sonja Smith and Shinovene Immanuel | 23 Septemebr 2022 FORMER president Hifikepunye Pohamba has allegedly asked minister of defence and veterans affairs Frans Kapofi to withdraw from Swapo’s vice presidential race. The former president reportedly also tried to convince minister of environment, forestry and tourism Pohamba Shifeta to abandon his bid for the throne – a move that appears to have been made to possibly give deputy prime minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah a better chance at challenging prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila for the vice president position. But Shifeta, also known as president Hage Geingob’s ‘prodigal son’, allegedly refused to back down and said he was marching on. Pohamba Shifeta Three sources familiar with the matter has confirmed Pohamba’s phone call to Kapofi.

By Sonja Smith and Eliaser Ndeyanale | 22 June THREE years after Ondonga King Immanuel Kauluma Elifas died, his estate has still not been finalised. His countless wealth of cattle and other assets is still being counted, his family and the executor of his will say. Elifas ruled the Ondonga kingdom for 44 years, making him the kingdom’s third-longest serving leader, after pre-colonial kings Nembungu lya Mutundu and Nangombe ya Mvula, whose reigns lasted 70 and 50 years, respectively. Elifas died in April 2019 at Onandjokwe State Hospital at the age of 86.His 21-page will, obtained by The Namibian from the Master of the High Court, divides his thousands of head of cattle among his wife and descendants. It’s unclear how much money was left by Elifas, since his estate is...

By Sonja Smith, Tileni Mongudhi |17 June 2022 PRIME minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has told close confidants she wants to challenge for the Swapo vice president position – taking her one step closer to the Presidency. This comes after former president Sam Nujoma (93) in March called for the next president to be a woman. Nujoma has sponsored and helped propel the prime minister's political career in Swapo and the government since she was a youth.President Hage Geingob has not yet indicated who he would be supporting, but indications are that people in his inner circle may prefer Kuugongelwa-Amadhila. She is said to be planning how she will announce her candidature.Becoming Swapo's vice president would make her Geingob's likely successor. Born in 1967 at Otamanzi near Okahao in the Omusati region as the...

By Tileni Mongudhi and Sonja Smith |14 June 2022 NETUMBO Nandi-Ndaitwah spent her 21st birthday in prison. Her crime was protesting a spate of arrests of Swapo leaders. From August to December 1973, she and her comrades were imprisoned.When they were released, many were sentenced to public flogging. She didn't face the whip herself, but she soon fled the country to join the struggle in exile.When forced to witness such cruelty, some people get hardened and vengeful. But Nandi-Ndaitwah took a different path, joining Swapo's diplomatic efforts.And before joining the struggle for independence, she teamed up with bishop Leonard Auala and reverend Richard Wood in their efforts to get flogging banned throughout Namibia.It's not that she was opposed to violence as a strategy in the struggle.In 1983, while based in Tanzania, she married Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah, then a leading figure in...

By Sonja Smith | 20 May 2022 IT WASN’T until high school that Celvia Shivolo realised she was different.Of course, she’d always been different. Her parents and four siblings were all of average height. She was the only one with dwarfism. She’d just never felt so alone as after she moved with her father to Oshakati for school. There, her fellow pupils at her new school started laughing at her.“I don’t know whether it was the first time they saw a short person like me, but they started laughing at me,” Shivolo said. “When I told my aunty, she told me to forget about it.” Then the name calling started. Some called her ‘jubbie’. The Aawambo called her eyungu, meaning a short person with a big head.“They said that it was stupid of my...

By Sonja Smith | 20 April 2022 A UNIVERSITY of Namibia lecturer and his family want the Ministry of Health and Social Services to pay them N$18 million for failing to take steps that could have prevented the death of his wife who was shot in Windhoek three years ago. High Court documents filed in November last year show that longtime media lecturer Fred Mwilima is suing the health ministry and a security company which guarded the offices where his wife worked.The government is defending the case and has denied any wrongdoing.Mwilima's wife, Sarah, died in her office in the City Centre building in the central business district when a subordinate, Simataa Simasiku, who was 33 years old at the time, shot her at around 11h00 on 28 January 2019.She was 51 years old.Ms Mwilima worked as a management unit director...

By Tileni Mongudhi and Sonja Smith | 14 AprilNETUMBO Nandi-Ndaitwah spent her 21st birthday in prison. Her crime was protesting a spate of arrests of Swapo leaders. From August to December 1973, she and her comrades were imprisoned.When they were released, many were sentenced to public flogging. She didn't face the whip herself, but she soon fled the country to join the struggle in exile.When forced to witness such cruelty, some people get hardened and vengeful. But Nandi-Ndaitwah took a different path, joining Swapo's diplomatic efforts.And before joining the struggle for independence, she teamed up with bishop Leonard Auala and reverend Richard Wood in their efforts to get flogging banned throughout Namibia.It's not that she was opposed to violence as a strategy in the struggle.In 1983, while based in Tanzania, she married Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah, then a leading figure in Swapo's military wing, the...

By Timo Shihepo and Sonja Smith WHEN former Cabinet minister Erkki Nghimtina filed for divorce, he never expected that the process would take six years – and that even then he would still be haggling over how to divvy up property with his ex-wife. “It’s supposed to be simple to just say: ‘Look, our love has expired to an extent that we can no longer be together anymore,’” he said. “Then we parted ways. But it is not. It’s more complicated.” Nghimtina declined to say how much he had spent on legal fees, but spoke admiringly of Cuba’s famously simple divorce laws. Cuban couples have reported getting a divorce in about 20 minutes, at the cost of around N$15.“In Cuba, if you marry… and you feel you no longer want the person, you can divorce without any issues,”...

By Sonja Smith | 11 February 2022SHANNON Wasserfall's mother, Poppy, clearly remembers her daughter promising to save her from poverty, build her a big house, and to relocate her to Canada. But Poppy has been left heartbroken.It is a Sarturday morning and the mother, who has not spoken to the media since Shannon's death in April 2020, is overcome by emotion.“I have lost my daughter, and I'm hurt. She would have given me a better life. To tell you the truth, my life has now been cut into two pieces from the day Shannon went missing,” she says.Poppy describes her relationship with Shannon as a bond between sisters.She switches between Afrikaans and English, but her grief knows no limits.“She was a visionary and would tell me 'Mom, just hold on, I'll finish school, I will go and come back for you, you will smile....