Werner Menges
18 April 2008
Windhoek — Nico Josea should no longer be lonely in the dock from today - six newly charged co-accused are set to join this key figure in the multi-million-dollar Avid Investment Corporation scandal for a first joint appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court.
The six, of whom five were arrested by the Namibian Police late on Wednesday afternoon, made a first appearance before Magistrate Elsie Schickerling in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court yesterday.
They are: * Paulus Kapia, former Deputy Minister of Works, Transport and Communication, former Member of Parliament, and former Swapo Party Youth League Secretary; * Ralph Blaauw, a former MP and former Acting Secretary General of the National Youth Council; * Mathias Shiweda, retired Namibia Defence Force Brigadier who is currently in charge of the State-owned Windhoeker Maschinenfabrik (1998); * Otniel Podewiltz, a lawyer and a Deputy Director in the Office of the Employment Commissioner; * lawyer Sharon Blaauw, who is married to Mr Blaauw; and * Inez /Gâses, former chairperson of the board of directors of Avid Investment Corporation.
With their appearance in court on a charge of fraud, alternatively theft, they were added as co-accused in the case in which Josea has been charged since late in July 2005 already. Kapia, Podewiltz, /Gâses and Mrs Blaauw were all directors of an asset management company, Avid Investment Corporation, which in early 2005 netted a N$30 million investment from the Social Security Commission. On Avid letterheads, Shiweda was also listed as a director of the company at one stage, but according to Shiweda he had agreed to become a shareholder in the company only, and never a director.
Sources informed The Namibian yesterday that the arrests that were carried out on Wednesday and yesterday morning - when Shiweda was the last of the six to be arrested - resulted from a decision from the Office of the Prosecutor General that the six should also be charged in the same case in which Josea has been in the dock several time over the past almost three years. With their appearance in court, Public Prosecutor Linus Samaria asked Magistrate Schickerling to postpone the case of the six to today, when they are scheduled to appear together with Josea. The six have been released on bail of N$10 000 each. Josea is supposed to hear today what the Prosecutor General has decided on the prosecution he faces. With him, his six co-accused are now also expected to hear what the Prosecutor General's decision is about the charges they can expect to face when they go on trial, and in which court that trial will be taking place.
Josea and his co-accused were all involved - some more prominently than others - in the Companies Act inquiry into the bankruptcy of Avid that took place between late July and early September 2005 before Acting Judge Raymond Heathcote in the High Court in Windhoek. AVID ABOUT AVID Avid was liquidated after it failed to repay the N$30 million that the SSC had intended to invest though it in late January 2005 by the time the investment period expired in late May 2005.
At the enquiry it was established that Avid had paid N$29,5 million of the money it received from the SSC to another asset management company run by Josea, Namangol Investments. Namangol had a little over N$10 000 in its bank account at that stage. During the fortnight that followed on the transfer of the SSC funds into its account, some N$1,9 million was paid from that account into a personal account of Josea, according to evidence produced during the inquiry.
A transfer of N$20 million was also made from Namangol's account to an account of a supposed investment broker in South Africa, Alan Rosenberg, who in mid-March in turn again had some N$14,899 million paid to lawyers representing Josea. This money was then transferred into a personal account of Josea, who proceeded to make huge withdrawals, payments and donations - none of it to Avid - from his account. By the time Avid had to repay the SSC's money, it had nothing to return. TRUTH ON THE LINE Acting Judge Heathcote summarised the situation that existed in late May 2005 in a judgement on the enquiry that he handed down in December 2005: "By this date, the money was not safely secured in an investment fund, waiting to be returned to its rightful owner.
Rather, it was distributed by people, ill-equipped to do the work of investors, and it appears, hypnotised by farfetched stories of huge returns invented by international con-artists." Acting Judge Heathcote stated that the full truth was not told during the enquiry. He referred the record of the enquiry to the Prosecutor General so that it could be decided if any of the people who testified in the enquiry - these included all six people arrested and charged this week - had committed perjury in their testimony and if they should be prosecuted on charges of perjury and, if necessary, also other charges.
These might yet include counts of bribery. In testimony given during the enquiry it was claimed that the late Lazarus Kandara, who in effect was running Avid, had requested his wife, Christophine Kandara, to hand amounts of N$40 000 each, which she had received from Josea, to Kapia, Mr Blaauw, Podewiltz and Shiweda shortly after the investment deal was struck between the SSC and Avid.
The alleged recipients of these amounts of N$40 000 have all denied having received such payments from Mrs Kandara.
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