By Obrein Simasiku
WINDHOEK – The two dismissed managers of Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) accused of dishonesty, conspiracy and misuse of company properties, denied the charges against them stating they acted within the ambit of the law.
Business operations manager, Dainah Mugaviri, and chief risk officer, Jeremia Shangadi, stood their ground at a press briefing last Thursday, maintaining allegations that led to their unfair dismissal were not true because they were not involved in spying.
Shangadi said media reports are false stories because they did not spy purposely on staff emails but rather they acted within the boundaries of the law as the board had authorised them to trace the source of media leakages on sensitive financial information.
In a letter dated July 15, 2011, which New Era has in its possession, it is stated, “NWR’s internal and sensitive documents have been leaked to the media several times before, because this particular document was only available to a small subset of NWR staff, finding the source of this leaky is highly possible. Therefore, the board has authorised an internal investigation led by the Risk Compliance and Internal Audit Department with assistance of private investigators, legal support and other means necessary to uncover the source of this recent financial information leak.
“It all started in May 2013, when it was reported in the Namibian Sun and Confidante and this is what New Era replicated. That is when the Chairman came to me, as auditor mandated to undertake the investigation questioning me of what happened and why the information is now in the newspapers and led to us opting to use another strategy and that is where the email system comes in,” he explained.
He further reiterated through the new strategy he emailed the head of IT technician, Ruben Francisco, instructing him to assist him in tracing if any emails were sent outside the NWR server. However, he drifted away from the fact that he deliberately targeted specific individuals, as it was part of the investigation plan including the 171 emails.
Furthermore, he said the report was concluded and handed over to the board that gave a green light to the lawyers to validate the report and the charges.
Shangadi further claimed since then when the report was submitted they never heard anything. “About the outcome of the report we don’t know, we cannot say anything,” he said.
The duo refused to divulge any information regarding the other allegation stating they are only clarifying the email report in the media nothing else.
Nevertheless, they said they would follow the normal procedures to appeal with the fact that they were not given a fair chance to present evidence on August 2 or to reconvene with the board.
“We only had to hear from them through our lawyer who informed us of the dismissal,” they stated.