WINDHOEK – Government attorneys are asking that the High Court dismiss what it termed a vexatious and frivolous lawsuit currently in Oshakati High Court where a certain 43-year-old unemployed man is claiming N$38,3 trillion (US$2,6 trillion) compensation from President Hage Geingob, Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and the government.
The man identifies himself as David Uuyuni Kaulinawa Kamati residing at Okalongo Lodge Bar in Ongwediva and originally from Oluteyi village in Omusati Region. He claims that the compensation of N$38,3 trillion is owed to him due to the loss of his inheritance from his late father, a certain Leopold Kamati who died “in late 1977 or early 1978.”
Kamati claims that his father owned shareholdings in nearly all mines in the country, and with business interests in all sectors of the economy, and he was worth N$51 billion at his death nearly 40 years ago.
Kamati wants the government to compensate him for the loss of that inheritance, with compounded interest on income he should have received since the death of this father.
However, in their response Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, Geingob and the government, pointed out that the claims being made by Kamati are baseless, without any foundation, vexatious and frivolous.
They want the case dismissed and for Kamati to be made to pay the costs incurred. “The purported application is frivolous or vexatious and [the application] has no prospect of success. It was brought merely to annoy the respondents,” said Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, through the Government Attorneys.
They point out that Kamati – who seem not to have made use of a legal practitioner - did not attach any proof to show that his father owned any shareholding in the companies being mentioned in court. Geingob and the Prime Minister also point out that Kamati did not even provide a single proof of evidence against any of the things he is mentioning in his long documents before the court. He did not even include the death certificate of his father, or any proof that he is indeed the son of the man he is said left him billions of dollars in inheritance.
The claims by Kamati are, for a lack of a better word, perplexing. Kamati strangely describe his late father as “a Namibian businessman, politician, scientist, historian, philanthropist” but also “served as prime minister of South West Africa (SWA)/Namibia from 1961 to 1964,” and one of the front runners in the liberation struggle of Namibia, and a prominent leader of the liberation struggle movement called SWAPO. The colonial forces of South Africa apparently assassinated Kamati when David Kamati was only three years old.
The lawsuit then goes to list a bizarre account of the wealth of the man called Kamati who seemingly had a stake in virtually every prominent business that existed in the days before independence.
“Business interest in mining, construction, retail, manufacturing, farming, transport, fisheries, education, rail and owned a holding companies called Tsumeb Limited Corporation (TLC).” Kamati Snr also apparently owned shareholding of 50 percent in nearly every mine in the country, from the then CDM (which transformed into Namdeb), Rosh Pinah Zinc Mine, Rossing Uranium Mine, Karibib Gold Mine, Otjihase Mine and the list continues.