WINDHOEK – The fraud case of former Multichoice Namibia marketing executive, Manga Nawa-Mukena, 37, her husband Joseph Mukena, 43 and their friend Celestino Gabriel Antonio, 37 was put back on the mentions roll of the Windhoek High Court.
This was after they succeeded in a petition to the Supreme Court to appeal a decision by the judge hearing their case not to recuse himself.
The accused applied for the recusal of Windhoek High Court Acting Judge Kobus Miller after it came to light that the judge was supposed to be the mediator in a civil matter involving Nawa-Mukena and the television company.
They wanted the judge to remove himself from their trial on grounds of alleged bias.
The mediation however never took place and the judge refused the recusal application on the grounds that he had no insight in the matter.
Nawa-Mukena and co-accused then brought an application for leave to appeal the refusal in the Supreme Court and again the judge shot down the application, saying there is no prospects that another court will come to a different conclusion.
They then petitioned the chief justice and were granted an appeal in the Supreme Court.
The State through Advocate Salomon Kanyemba opposed all the applications.
A date must still be set for the Supreme Court appeal and the matter will now remain on the mentions roll of the High Court until a decision is reached in the Supreme Court.
The Mukena and Antonio are facing charges of fraud, alternatively theft, money laundering, forgery and uttering of a forged document, contravening the Organised Crime Act, obstructing or defeating the course of justice or attempting to do so and contravening the Value Added Tax Act.
The Mukena couple face 85 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, the wife alone 84 counts of forgery and uttering a forged document, all three accused a second count of forgery and uttering a forged document, the Mukena one count of contravening the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, all three one count of money laundering, all three accused one count of obstructing or defeating the course of justice or attempting to do so, while Manga alone faces one count of contravening the Value Added Tax Act.
The scheme ran from April 2013 to March 2017 according to the State.
According to the summary of substantial facts in the indictment, the Mukena were at all relevant and material times married in community of property and Antonio a close friend of the couple.
Also during the relevant times, Manga was employed by Multi Choice Namibia (MCN) as marketing manager responsible for the effective management of the marketing, advertising and promotional activities of the television company.
Being the sales and marketing manager, she was responsible for the placements of advertisements of MCN’s current and new product concepts in the newspapers and other media establishments as well as for the approving and or submitting all supplier invoices to MCN for processing and payment, the indictment reads.
It further states that Manga had taken advantage of the situation and initiated a fraudulent scheme wherein she would draw up falsified supplier tax invoices reflecting the name of the Kundana weekly newspaper published by New Era Publications Corporation for advertisements purportedly placed in the weekly.
It is further alleged that after the arrest of Manga, she and her husband approached Antonio in order to misrepresent to MCN that he owned a company called KundanaNam (pty) Ltd which had rendered the marketing services in question and that all the payments were made to the said KundanaNam.
The State alleges that MCN suffered a loss of N$2 088 071 as a result of the fraudulent and money laundering scheme perpetrated by the three accused.
The Mukena are represented by Orben Sibeya and Antonio by Mbanga Siyomunji.
Nawa-Mukena and Antonio are free on bail while Mukena is free on a warning.