A handful of people suspected to have worked together with a former Windhoek-based prosecutor in a witness fees scam that saw the Office of the Judiciary lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, are yet to be traced.
According to state prosecutor Latoya Mukumbo, the police are busy tracing eight people who will be added to the current 14 accused persons in the case.
Former prosecutor Ivan Tjizu stands alongside co-accused Eino Kombanda, Sackaria Panduleni, Paulus Fillemon, Today Amoomo, Sam Haiduwa, Andrew Masipa, Benjamin Amoomo, Gabriel Usko, Festus Mweendeleli, Alvin Kuutondokwa, Pendukeni Shikongo, Michael Namene and Isai Nathanael in the matter.
During court proceedings, the magistrate Molefe Swaniso advised the accused who had no legal representation to get lawyers, postponing the matter finally for police investigations to 10 June. All accused persons are currently on warning after they were released when their case was provisionally struck from the roll pending police investigations.
Tjizu and his co-accused are currently facing more than 130 counts of corruption under the ACC Act.
The charges range from fraud to managing an enterprise conducted through a pattern of racketeering activities, corruptly giving a false document containing false statements to an agent, conducting an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activities and money laundering.
According to the prosecution, while Tjizu was working for the office of the prosecutor general in Windhoek stationed at Windhoek Magistrate’s Court, he conspired with his co-accused in scamming N$410 000 from the Office of the Judiciary through paid-out witness fees.
It is alleged that the group fraudulently worked together with a web of people in claiming witness fees for people who allegedly travelled from outside Windhoek and were arranged to pose as state witnesses during court sessions.
As a prosecutor at the time, Tjizu would allegedly misrepresent the witnesses to the presiding magistrate and as a result witness fees were falsely claimed and paid out. Once witness fees had been allegedly paid out to people who were arranged to pose as witnesses, the money would then be shared.
– mamakali@nepc.com.na