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Esau irregularly appointed Hatuikulipi at Fishcor u2013 ACC
Esau irregularly appointed Hatuikulipi at Fishcor u2013 ACC

Esau irregularly appointed Hatuikulipi at Fishcor – ACC

Cindy Van Wyk
JEMIMA BEUKES



WINDHOEK

Disgraced former minister of fisheries Bernhardt Esau ignored the provisions of the Fishcor Act when he appointed James Hatuikulipi as board chairperson of the state-owned fishing entity, the Anti-Corruption (ACC) said in the High Court yesterday.

According to ACC lead Fishrot investigator Andreas Kanyangela, the founding Act stipulates that the appointment of Fishcor’s chairperson must be made by the board of directors, who must nominate a candidate from among themselves.

Kanyangela also testified that former Fishcor CEO Mike Nghipunya was appointed to that position without any interviews, and that he started the job before the Public Service Commission of Namibia approved his appointment.

“He had a very low position when he was seconded. He was an economist in the fisheries ministry and he had no managerial experience that was required to manage such an organisation,” Kanyangela said.

According to him, the two appointments were part of a grand scheme the Fishrot accused to hijack the fishing quota allocation system for their own benefit.

He said following a High Court ruling that fishing quotas could not be given to non-fishing rights holders, the gang cooked up a plan which included getting Cabinet approval to change the Fisheries and Marine Resources Act.

Kanyangela also told the court that Esau convinced Cabinet that the fisheries sector and fishing allocation system had been mismanaged for years, a situation that needed urgent intervention.

Companies close doors

Ironically, according to the ACC, some of Esau’s dissatisfaction stemmed from the allocation of fishing quotas to the Namibia Fish Consumption Trust, which in his view gave fish to a ‘meat-eating society’.

The Namibian Fish Consumption Trust was established to make fish and marine food easily accessible to Namibians who could not afford to buy expensive fish in mainstream shops.

Instead, the fisheries laws should be changed to allow Esau to allocate fishing quotas to non-rights holders who would be willing and committed to alleviating poverty, Kanyangela said.

These amendments, eventually approved by Cabinet, saw many fishing companies closing their doors as fishing quotas were diverted, some benefitting Esau and his cronies.

The amended law also saw thousands of workers losing their jobs, plunging the country’s fishing community into untold misery, with some fishermen committing suicide because they could no longer support their families.

“The accused benefitted from quotas that were allocated to Fishcor and the Namibia Fish Consumption Trust for government objectives. This arose after the accused devised a plan to benefit from the quotas the fisheries minister allocated to the Fish Consumption Trust and Fishcor and they started the plan by appointing each other in key positions, which would give them the access to these quotas,” Kanyangela said.

He added that one of the entities involved in this scheme was Samherji Fishing, the Icelandic fishing giant whose Namibian supervisor Johannes Stefansson blew the whistle on the entire deal.

Samherji reportedly paid N$600 000 into the Cambadara Trust, from where N$350 000 was paid to James Hatuikulipi; N$100 000 to Erongo Clearing - a company owned by Esau’s son-in-law Tamson Hatuikulipi as well as N$50 000 and another N$150 000 to Esau’s BE Farming through Erongo Clearing.

These payments were made between 4 and 21 December 2012, while a cheque of N$150 000 from Standard Bank’s Gustav Voigts branch was issued to BE Farming on 1 December 2012.

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Namibian Sun 2024-11-23

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