Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – The Eenhana Town Council has dismissed as malicious a report in a daily newspaper that one of its officials is being investigated for a loss of N$8 million.
The Namibian reported that Steve Mwaningange, the council’s manager of town planning and technical services, is being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) with regard to an N$8 million road tender which was awarded in in 2013 under the TIPEEG program.
“The project referred to was a TIPEEG [project] and the consultant, Aurecon Namibia, was appointed by the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development. The Eenhana Town Council local tender board contracted Namibia Chemicals Cleaning Services in 2013 to surface the roads in Eenhana,” council CEO Walde Ndevashiya said.
“The project started on 10 June 2013 and the final completion certificate of the project was signed on 20 July 2016 by the project consultant and the council to confirm that the projects was successfully carried [out] and the roads surfaced are of good quality and can be inspected.”
“Council is therefore refuting the allegations in the newspaper article of work paid for which was not done and that there is no internal investigation being carried out by Eenhana Town Council as alleged by the writer,” he further said.
The town council also said it was not aware of any investigation against it by the ACC.
“All the documentations pertaining to this project are available and they can be availed to anybody who is interested in this project,” said Ndevashiya.
“We wish to further state that, Eenhana Town Council is a public entity that is subjected to annual audits, conducted by the competent auditors appointed by the Office of the Auditor General, and the audited reports of Eenhana Town Council (2013 to 2018) are available. Hence, it impossible for such a lot of money to go missing and not have been detected by the auditors.”
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Walde Ndevashiya