Swapo vice presidential hopeful and tourism minister Pohamba Shifeta has vowed to involve Interpol to intercept Ernest Adjovi as Namibia continues fighting to recover N$23.5 million paid to the Kora awards founder.
In 2016, Adjovi was paid millions of dollars for an awards ceremony that was supposed to be held in Namibia.
The government, through the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB), continues to pursue legal action after Adjovi, who is originally from Benin, vanished soon after receiving the money.
Although Shifeta’s name was dragged into the saga, the court has since vindicated him of any wrongdoing.
“We are now waiting for those people to pay our money back. If not, I have instructed the NTB that if that man does not pay back our money, we make it a criminal case so that we inform Interpol to intercept him,” Shifeta said in an interview last week.
“He will definitely not come to Namibia. If he does, we will impound him. His lawyers are saying they will see how they will pay the money, but they are trying to delay. The plan is to make it a criminal case.
That is pure theft. It looks like he deliberately violated the contract to steal the money. It is my wish that this money is returned.”
According to him, the intention of the NTB to rope in Adjovi was good. That is why they approved it.
However, he said they did not know or detect these were crooks as they were together with people from Namibia as organisers.
Shifeta said he warned then attorney general Sacky Shanghala about security issues. He said he questioned why the government had to pay money directly into an account outside Namibia.
“I informed the attorney general that the best thing is to have the account here. I was very firm on that. You know these crooks… they always use names. When they went to the NTB, they said “high office”. That is why they used the innocent president’s name. I worked with President Hage Geingob, but this one was not him. Not that he doesn’t know the person [Adjovi]. I even made it clear in my affidavit that these people were not sent by the President here.
These people came here, and directly went to the NTB because it is the one responsible for marketing our country,” he clarified. “They must just leave the president alone. We shouldn’t do that. It is really not fair. I am totally innocent; people can just read the court judgement, it’s very clear. I am completely vindicated. If those people were disputing what the court adjudicated, they could have appealed to the Supreme Court. The mere fact they didn’t appeal is clear; they have accepted that.” Shifeta said everyone knew Kora was an important event.
He observed that when it was held in South Africa, there were many guests of the ilk of Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela. “With that record, we thought they will not crook us. I was, however, worried whether we had security – money to be paid outside Namibia – before the delivery of services.
I was saying we must have an account in Namibia, where Kora and the NTB would have co-signatories. When the service is delivered, then the money can be transferred. But this was ignored. I was trying to convince the attorney general that we need security as I wasn’t comfortable sending money outside the country. My concern was completely ignored,” he remarked.
Thereafter, he instructed the NTB to go to court to recover the N$23.5 million paid to Adjovi, which was paid to purportedly promote Namibia.