WALVIS BAY – The embattled National Fishing Corporation of Namibia is probing a possible scam in which N$8 million was paid to people, whose names were allegedly illegally added to that of former Seaflower Pelagic Processing’s relief grant recipients.
At least 127 people’s names were added to the list since 2021.
This was confirmed yesterday to New Era by Fishcor CEO Alex Gawanab, who said the monthly grants to the 127 have been ceased in the meantime to get clarity.
Seaflower Pelagic Processing (SPP), the horse mackerel processing plant, was established through a joint venture between Fishcor and African Selection Fishing (ASF) in 2017.
This agreement allows SPP to access, through Fishcor, at least 50 000 metric tons of horse mackerel until 2031.
However, for the past two years, the company was unable to exploit its quota due to an ongoing dispute with government over the Fishcor partnership. As a result, about 420 employees opted to leave their jobs at SPP and were subsequently employed by Tunacor Fisheries on a temporary basis. The contract came to an end last year. They are currently being paid by Fishcor through another arrangement.
According to a document seen by New Era, Gawanab on 23 June requested the acting minister of public enterprises Iipumbu Shiimi to cease payments to the suspected imposter employees to investigate.
“Claims from the public are that there are people added to the list that were never employed by SPP. Such rogue persons have since last year been unduly benefiting from this generous support from the government through Fishcor,” Gawanab said in the letter to Shiimi.
Gawanab further explained that as a result of these ongoing allegations, Fishcor carried out a preliminary investigation and discovered that the 127 are indeed rogue ex-SPP employees, who have penetrated and benefitted from the system until May this year.
“As a result of this occurrence, all payments have now been halted, pending further investigations. The amount of the rogue employees is amounting to approximately N$2.22 million but if the same number received benefits since 2021, the total fraudulent benefits payments
would be in the range of N$7.94 million,” Gawanab revealed in the letter.
Gawanab yesterday also said they are experiencing difficulties with the verification of the list because of the ongoing court case between SPP and Fishcor.
“We cannot get information from them directly; hence, we have no access to a verifiable list and could only get one through other means. It is fairly accurate but not foolproof. Therefore, we have also requested that the employees themselves contact us to verify their previous employment details,” Gawanab explained yesterday.
According to him, some of the people only work a day or week but were added to the former employees’ list, while some of
the names are family members of those who were previously employed at SPP.
“Be it as it may, we will only continue paying those who can provide that they either had a contract or were retrenched and can positively prove that. The rest will be removed,” he said.
Gawanab also indicated they still have to decide what steps will be taken against the people who benefited fraudulently from Fishcor. Contacted yesterday for comment, general manager of Princess Brand (former SPP) Adolf Burger said they are aware of Fishcor’s predicament, but they are not liable for any of their labour matters.
Burger said they did not supply any list to Fishcor, as they did not retrench any employees nor did anyone resign from them. “Initially, only 420 employees left when they were lured away after government withdrew its horse mackerel quota that we were getting through Fishcor,” said Burger.
According to Burger, they were never consulted from the start, as the employees – out of their own will – chose to leave.
“In fact, nobody resigned from us. We were still operating when people were promised jobs elsewhere. So, let them deal with their own mess.
None of those employees resigned. They just left,” Burger said yesterday.
– edeklerk@nepc.com.na