A FORMER employee of a company contracted to handle value-added tax (VAT) refund claims on behalf of the Ministry of Finance has received an 18-year prison term for her involvement in a fraud scheme that cost the government more than N$26 million.
Mamsy Nuuyoma (33) received the term of imprisonment when she, 10 Angolan citizens, and a former boyfriend of hers were sentenced at the end of their trial in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.
Acting judge Kobus Miller sent all 12 accused convicted by him and two assessors at the start of March to prison.
Nuuyoma’s jail term of 18 years was the heaviest of the sentences imposed, followed by a prison term of 14 years, received by Angolan citizen Joao Manuel dos Santos, and a sentence of 10 years in jail which was handed to fellow Angolan Aurelio Nelson Miapia.
Nuuyoma was convicted on 209 counts of fraud, involving false claims for VAT refunds totalling more than N$203 million submitted to her former employer, the company Aveshe Consulting, which was handling VAT refund claims for the Ministry of Finance during 2014 and 2015.
A total amount of more than N$26,4 million was paid out as a result of the fraudulent claims.
The false VAT refund claims were submitted to Aveshe Consulting by Angolan citizens who used forged documents – including invoices from retailers and customs declaration forms – to claim they had bought goods in Namibia and were exporting them to Angola.
In the judgement in which he convicted the 12 accused, Miller found that the state proved the 10 charged Angolans made misrepresentations to Aveshe Consulting and the Ministry of Finance, and that Nuuyoma played an instrumental role in processing their claims to the point that refund payments to them were approved and made.
The court heard during the trial that forged invoices – some of which had also been used months earlier in false VAT refund claims submitted to Aveshe – were found in the residence which Nuuyoma and her then boyfriend, Noah ‘Boykie’ Naukosho, shared in Windhoek when investigators of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) searched the premises at the start of December 2015.
Naukosho and Dos Santos were found guilty of money laundering in connection with payments totalling N$2,53 million which Dos Santos had made into a bank account of Naukosho during 2015.
Miller rejected the two men’s claims that they did not know each other.
An ACC investigator testified during the trial that Dos Santos had told him he had made the payments into Naukosho’s account for Nuuyoma’s benefit.
Miller sentenced Naukosho, who had been free on bail until Friday, to five years’ imprisonment on the charge of money laundering.
Dos Santos, who was held in custody since his arrest at the start of December 2015, was also sentenced to a five-year jail term on that count, but the sentence was ordered to run together with the 14-year term of imprisonment he received on the 49 counts of fraud on which he was convicted.
Dos Santos received VAT refund payments totalling N$13,2 million from the Ministry of Finance as a result of false claims for refunds totalling N$172 million, which he submitted to Aveshe from January to November 2015.
He claimed he had bought goods valued at N$1,3 billion in Namibia and exported them to Angola.
Nuuyoma, who is the mother of a two-year-old child, had been free on bail until she was found guilty in March.
Miller remarked during the sentencing that it was difficult not to have sympathy for the position in which she was finding herself. However, sympathy and mercy were not the same thing, he said.
He said she had been employed in a position of trust when she committed the fraud.
Miapia, who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, was convicted on 22 counts of fraud, involving VAT refund claims totalling N$3 million which were paid out.
Fellow Angolan Zimutu Pembele, convicted on 24 counts of fraud involving refund claims totalling N$11,3 million, with N$4,8 million paid out to him, was sentenced to a jail term of seven years.
Pembele had been held in custody since his arrest in December 2015.
Further sentences imposed are jail terms of five years for Benvindo Momafuba and Malaquias Tomas Rufino, who received payments of about N$828 000 and N$782 000 respectively, a four-year prison term for Isaac Cativa Cupessala, three years in prison for Carlos Victor Eliseu and Jose Paquete Kapoyola, and two-year jail terms for Joaquim Pedro Espanhol, who received a payment of about N$89 700, and Carlos Feliciano Tchinduku, who pocketed about N$345 000.
Deputy prosecutor general Henry Muhongo represented the state during the trial, which started in March 2019.
The accused were represented by defence lawyers Winnie Christians, Trevor Brockerhoff, Kalundu Kamwi, Marvin Katuvesirauina, Mekumbu Tjiteere and Theo Carolus.