WINDHOEK – The case in which the Deputy Commissioner of Prisons Tuhafeni Hangula faces a charge of academic fraud continued yesterday in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court.
The deputy commissioner faces one count of fraud, one count of theft, a count of forgery, two counts of uttering and a count of receiving stolen property. The charges the deputy commissioner faces stem from allegations that the Grade 12 school certificate he has been using is a fake.
Responding to a question from prosecutor Erick Moyo on why his certificate did not contain the subject biology, which he allegedly passed well, the deputy commissioner responded he did not examine his certificate.
“I was a poor performer, but it does not mean I am stupid,” he added. Hangula continued that he did not check his certificate to see in which subjects he performed best.
“The aim was to obtain a Grade 12 certificate, which I did,” Hangula said. He further informed the court that after the allegations surfaced that he forged his Grade 12 certificate he wrote to the Ministry of Education for them to further investigate the matter.
Hangula was arrested in April last year and is free on bail of N$2 000. Magistrate John Sindano is presiding. Sisa Namandje represents the accused.
Media reports indicate that Hangula testified about this matter in the High Court in Windhoek in October 2012 during a trial on a defamation claim that he had instituted against a weekly newspaper about an article that did not deal with his school qualifications. Documents placed before the court in that trial indicated that the correctness of Hangula’s Grade 12 certificate was confirmed in a letter signed by an official of the then Ministry of Education and Culture in April 1995.
By Tunomukwathi Asino