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By Sonja Smith | 20 January 2023 AGRO-MARKETING and Trade Agency (Amta) managing director Lucas Lungameni has been found guilty on eight counts of misconduct, including the disappearance of around N$6,2 million from the national agriculture company. Lungameni was suspended last year for alleged irregularities at the entity that faced allegations of corruption over the past decade. He denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to defend his case.The board appointed PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in June last year to conduct an investigation into the company. The charges Lungameni faces include failing to protect the interests of the company, failing to act with due diligence, breach of trust and gross negligence. Documents seen by The Namibian show that a disciplinary process led by lawyer Profysen Muluti, dated 14 November 2022, found Lungameni guilty of all eight counts of misconduct. Muluti said Lungameni is found guilty of the disappearance of N$6,2 million, of which N$1,2 million was...

By Sonja Smith | 14 December 2022 LAWYER Sisa Namandje has defended his decision to recruit the daughter of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) director general Paulus Noa – the man who investigated him over the laundering of N$23 million which was allegedly stolen from the government. Namandje’s law firm recruited Martha Noa (25) as a candidate attorney last year after she graduated with a masters degree in commercial law at the University of Cape Town in 2020. Namandje has over the past 18 years trained 30 candidate attorneys – including Swapo vice president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s son Ndelitungapo Ndaitwah, who worked for Sisa Namandje and Co until April last year. However, Namandje’s decision to bring in Noa’s daughter has raised eyebrows among political commentators and officials in the legal fraternity over a potential conflict of interest. Namandje could still be the subject of investigation in the future regarding the ongoing Fishrot corruption court case. Questions sent...

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 nephew of former minister Helmut Angula, Tirronenn Kauluma, to evaluate Namdia diamonds. Then, the ACC contacted Kandjoze on 21 November 2016 as part...

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. Three sources familiar with the matter has confirmed Pohamba’s phone call to Kapofi. Kapofi is said to have given in to Pohamba’s pressure and suddenly pulled out of the vice president race last week before nominees were presented to the...

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 still being finalised. Even with his herds spread across several villages, finding the cattle is easier than settling his financial affairs. His will gives...

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 youngest of five children, both of her parents had died by the time she was 12. Her father, Fillemon Kuugongelwa, a contract labourer...

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 Swapo's military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (Plan).He...

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 mother to give birth to me this way,” she said. As an adult, life hasn’t gotten easier. “Even now at...

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 at the health ministry under the Global Fund – an...

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 People's Liberation Army of Namibia (Plan).He...