Mail & Guardian reporter
SEVERAL top figures in Namibian politics, including two cabinet ministers and the Southern African Development Community (SADC ) executive secretary, have been accused of misusing drought relief aid.
The Namibian Cabinet in early May refused to release the report of an investigation into the abuse of funds while ‘clearing’ all top officials involved.
At the centre of the storm are SADC Executive Secretary Kaire Mbuende, Minister of Justice Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, Minister of Prisons Marco Hausiku, Deputy Minister of the Environment Nangolo Ithete, Deputy Minister of Finance Rick Kukuri, and Governor of the Okavango region, Ambrosius Haingura. All are accused of using drought aid money to drill boreholes on their private farms.
The ‘borehole scandal’ is being seen by observers as a test of the Namibian government’s real commitment to transparency and accountability following Swapo’s landslide majority in last December’s elections.
The allegations go back to the severe drought of 1992 in Namibia. In early 1993 the Namibian media revealed that Tjiriange and then Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Ithete, had arranged for two boreholes to be drilled on their jointly owned farm at a cost of almost N$200 000 during the 1992 drought.
Namibian Prime Minister Hage Geingob subsequently appointed a commission to be chaired by the head of Namibia’s public service body, Willie Brits, to investigate the media
It soon became clear to the officials involved in the Brits investigation that other top figures, besides Tjiriange and Ithete, were involved in the aid abuse.
The Brits Commission finished its work in mid-1994, but the Cabinet decided to appoint a new ad hoc committee of three ministers to hear the explanations of those political figures and officials named in the Brits report.
Three weeks ago Minister of Information Ben Amathila announced that all those implicated in the `borehole scandal’ had been cleared by the Cabinet.
At the same time Amathila released limited information about the investigation which made it clear that at least six top figures in Swapo had gained boreholes as individuals for their personal farms, expressly defying the directive that drought aid was for needy rural communities
Amathila said the Cabinet had decided to clear the officials because at the time they applied for aid there were no proper administration procedures in place and because the boreholes in question were now, three years later, accessible to rural communities.
Despite the Cabinet decision to exonerate the officials, it has since emerged that the Brits report found them guilty and recommended that they at least pay back the cost of the
The opposition DTA have called the government’s actions “a total cover up” and joined calls for the release of the Brits report and the subsequent findings of the ad hoc cabinet committee.
Questions are now being asked about the private farms occupied by the top officials. All the properties where boreholes were drilled are on communal land, where ministers and top party officials have been using their influence with tribal chiefs to gain land.
Namibia has yet to institute a land reform programme for communal areas leaving loopholes to be exploited by wily