Sasol and its joint venture partners in Namibia are finally starting to break their silence over a R4-billion oil contract as questions of impropriety mount around the questionable black economic empowerment deal. The Namibian Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating complaints of irregularities in the awarding of the state tender.
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/ 28 November 2005
The return to Namibia’s Parliament last week of a Swapo leader who was axed from Cabinet — at the height of the presidential succession battle little over a year ago by then head of state Sam Nujoma — has accentuated divisions in the ruling party.
Hidipo Hamutenya arrived at the National Assembly with hordes of cheering supporters making barely disguised jibes at Nujoma.
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/ 11 November 2005
After nearly two months of defiance, disgraced former Swapo youth leader Paulus Kapia has finally relented and resigned his seat in Parliament. This after a last ditch attempt by his mentor, former president Sam Nujoma, to sway the party’s politburo to hold fire until a corruption court case currently under way in Namibia is concluded.
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/ 10 October 2005
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s anti-corruption drive has reignited divisions within the ruling party and is driving a wedge between himself and his predecessor Sam Nujoma, according to Swapo insiders. When Pohamba forced Paulus Kapia to resign from his Cabinet in late August, it seemed a mere formality that he would also be expelled from the former liberation movement as well.
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/ 5 September 2005
Namibia’s latest financial investment scandal has claimed a Cabinet scalp. Paulus Kapia, the Deputy Minister of Works, Transport and Communication, who only a few months ago was the most favoured foot soldier of former state President Sam Nujoma, has resigned over his role in an asset management company linked to the embezzlement of a R30-million investment of the Social Security Commission.
Namibian authorities have called in the help of South African authorities to trace people who are suspected of having conned state companies out of at least R130- million of public funds under the guise of being investment managers. A Namibian newspaper reported that the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority has asked the Scorpions, for assistance in its search for the Namibian money.
A string of unrealised multimillion-rand investments with shady financial traders based in South Africa has left some Namibian state-owned companies embarrassed by the fact that they may have been conned into signing away at least R130-million in public funds.
”Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” is how University of Namibia professor of political studies Bill Lindeke described Namibia’s new government after Hifikepunye Pohamba replaced Sam Nujoma as state president on Monday. A Namibian current affairs magazine has dubbed Pohamba the ”Old Man — Mark II” to show how little things were likely to change.
Namibian churches displayed the anxiety that gripped most of the country as the ruling party, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), held a special congress to a search for a successor to its president and hero of the liberation, Sam Nujoma. As things turned out, the prayers of Nujoma, at least, were answered.
Having constantly dismissed comparisons with Zimbabwe, Namibia’s government last week lent credence to current perceptions when it announced plans to expropriate white-owned farms on the same day President Robert Mugabe’s propaganda chief arrived in the country.