Namibia: President’s Jet Used to Clinch Fishrot Deal

Namibia’s presidential jet aircraft was used to fly former Cabinet members Bernhard Esau and Sacky Shanghala to Angola for the signing of an agreement to set up a fisheries scheme that ended up turning into the Fishrot fraud and corruption scandal.

This is according to a document which featured in the bail hearing of six of the men charged in the Fishrot case in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

In a letter which the then permanent secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine resources, Ulitala Hiveluah, wrote to her counterpart in the Ministry of Works and Transport on 16 June 2014, a request was made for the presidential Falcon aircraft to be provided to transport a delegation to Angola and back two days later.

The delegation included fisheries and marine resources minister Bernhard Esau, Hiveluah and Sacky Shanghala, who at that stage was the chairperson of the Law Reform and Development Commission.

During the Namibian delegation’s visit to Luanda on 18 June 2014, Esau and the then minister of fisheries of Angola, Victoria de Barros Neto, signed a fisheries cooperation agreement which later led to the allocation of Namibian horse mackerel quotas to a supposed Angolan company, Namgomar Pesca SA.

The quotas allocated to Namgomar Pesca SA were passed on to companies in the Icelandic fishing company group Samherji, and proceeds from the use of those quotas – which were supposed to be used for “governmental objectives” – ended up in the bank accounts and pockets of the 10 men charged in the Fishrot case, the state is charging in the matter.

Anti-Corruption Commission investigator Andreas Kanyangela was on the witness stand for a second day, as the hearing of a bail application by six of the men charged in the case continued for a 12th day before judge Shafimana Ueitele yesterday.

Kanyangela testified about numerous documents which show how some of the accused in the case became involved in the Namibian fishing sector through the Namibia-Angola fisheries agreement and Namgomar Pesca SA.

The documents, which include records of email correspondence, also show that Shanghala and his co-accused James Hatuikulipi, Tamson Hatuikulipi and Ricardo Gustavo, who was the sole director of the Namibian company Namgomar Pesca Namibia, were from an early stage involved in arrangements to do business in the fishing sector through a fisheries agreement with Angola.

In one of the email messages provided to the court, Shanghala on 19 September 2013 sent ideas on the forming of a joint venture company which would do business with Samherji to James Hatuikulipi, Tamson Hatuikulipi, Gustavo and João de Barros. In the message, Shanghala introduced De Barros as the son of Angola’s fisheries minister and welcomed him “to the team”.

The message was also copied to Samherji representative Jóhannes Stefánsson, who later turned into a whistleblower who played a key role in bringing the Fishrot scandal to light when he revealed the alleged corruption in which Samherji and Namgomar are claimed to have been involved.

In another email message, which Shanghala sent to Stefánsson on 28 July 2013, he mentioned he was contacting Stefánsson directly “without consulting James and Fitty” – the nickname of Tamson Hatuikulipi – and asked for his input on a document with the heading ‘Opportunity Angola’, which he said he was due to discuss with “the minister” the next day.

Less than a month after the Namibia-Angola fisheries cooperation agreement had been signed, the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources informed Gustavo, as supposed director of Namgomar Pesca SA, on 7 July 2014 that a horse mackerel quota of 7 000 tonnes had been allocated to the company for the 2014 fishing season.

“This quota allocation is made as part of the Namibia-Angola Bilateral Agreement,” it was noted in the letter to Gustavo.

That same day, Gustavo sent news of the quota allocation to Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, Tamson Hatuikulipi, Gustavo, Stefánsson and João de Barros. In his email, he remarked that “we are in business”.

Kanyangela testified that according to evidence gathered during the investigation of the case, Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, Tamson Hatuikulipi, Gustavo and Stefánsson visited Iceland in August 2014 to have meetings with Samherji representatives on what was called “the Namgomar project”.

During those meetings, it was agreed that 25% of the quota usage fee which Samherji was to pay for fishing quotas allocated to Namgomar was to be paid in Namibia, while 75% was to be paid to the company Tundavala Invest of James Hatuikulipi, which is registered in Dubai.

Kanyangela said Namgomar Pesca SA, which was allocated horse mackerel quotas totalling 50 000 tonnes in Namibia, was not registered in Angola.

Samherji made payments totalling N$38 million to the Namibian company Namgomar Pesca Namibia, he added.

The bail hearing of Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia chief executive Mike Nghipunya, Pius Mwatelulo, Otneel Shuudifonya and Phillipus Mwapopi is continuing.

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