Namibia: We Don’t Need the ACC – Amupanda

Leader of the Affirmative Repositioning movement Job Amupanda says he will not be pressured into giving evidence of the alleged corrupt activities he exposes to the Anti-Corruption Commission because he does not trust the state-owned anti-graft body.

Amupanda, who is also the mayor of Windhoek, says he will continue with his current mode of operation of exposing alleged corrupt activities involving politicians and government officials on social media platforms because it has proven to be effective.

“We have our own anti-corruption mechanism that is effective. Our anti-corruption commission is Facebook, it is WhatsApp and Twitter. It has been effective. It was effective with [former justice minister Sacky] Shanghala and it has been effective with [former defence minister Hafeni] Vilho. It is so effective that once [… we act] other processes happen automatically elsewhere,” Amupanda said.

He made these remarks yesterday during a media briefing when he announced that the movement will start recruiting members for its “Revolutionary Union ” which is yet to be formally registered with the labour commissioner.

Earlier this year, Amupanda embarked on a rigorous social media campaign to expose what he called corruption at the Ministry of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs and its group of companies under the August 26 umbrella.

This includes allegations pertaining to a N$10 million tender to supply sanitisers at the ministry.

Amupanda named former minister Vilho and new executive director Wilhelmine Shivute as persons of interest in the alleged corruption.

His social media stunts partly led to the downfall of former navy commander Hafeni Peter Vilho who only served as defence minister for one year.

This month Amupanda revealed information on how the government has been funding the lifestyle of former intelligence service chief Lucas Hangula.

Despite the calls to formalise his fight against graft, the AR leader said he will not work with the established state-owned anti-corruption body (ACC) because of an underwhelming experience he had dealing with its boss Paulus Noa who has been accused of blocking investigations.

Noa has at several occasions denied this allegation.

However, Amupanda says Noa was especially problematic when he [Amupanda] was sued by Shanghala in 2018 over social media posts which stated that Shanghala was “an epitome and symbol of corruption in Namibia”.

Shanghala is now in prison awaiting trial in the Fishrot scandal which is by far Namibia’s biggest publicly known corruption scandal.

“… my lawyer wrote to Noa and asked whether he can share the information regarding Shanghala’s case and Noa refused to give us the information. So, why should I run to Noa as a point of entry? I don’t want to work on the direction of Noa and what they think.

“We want every Namibian to know what is happening to their resources,” Amupanda said yesterday.

Instead of requesting him to lodge formal complaints regarding alleged corrupt activities, Amupanda says the ACC must utilise provisions in its legal framework which allow the commission to initiate an investigation into allegations of corruption.

“At some point, Abacha [Vilho] said I must go to [Paulus] Noa to report him and Noa said ‘come to me with information’. So both Abacha and Noa agreed that I must go to Noa. Why must I waste my time in an environment like that? How do we know that they will not tip each other off and kill the investigations as they have been doing?

“Are these guys saying they can see a person killing but because no one came to them, they would not do anything?” Amupanda asked.

MORE REVELATIONS

Yesterday, Amupanda claimed that he has more information on corruption involving politicians and government officials to reveal.

He said this would be done on social media as it has been the case with others.

Amupanda yesterday claimed that he has evidence involving a Cabinet minister who bought land on the way to the Hosea Kutako International Airport for N$1,7 million in cash.

Amupanda says this evidence is among a host of information in the possession of the AR that he plans to release as part of his fight against corruption.

“There are a lot of things that we are dealing with and we have evidence about them. We have a lot of files everywhere about corruption that is happening in this country and we are going to continue with our programme of action. The anti-corruption spirit must now take place in those AR communities,” he stressed.

by Namibian.