Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

More to be added to witness fees scam list

Home National More to be added to witness fees scam list
More to be added to witness fees scam list

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