Nujoma linked to loan scam

2005-08-11 10:10

Windhoek - A suspended government official has linked Namibia's founding president Sam Nujoma to a multi-million-dollar scandal in which a state loan was apparently spirited into private accounts abroad, a daily reported on Wednesday.

Avril Green, a former financial manager at the state-run social security commission, told a Windhoek court on Wednesday that a newly established investment company, Avid Investment Corporation, was given a $30m loan under political pressure, The Namibian newspaper said.

Green said the youth wing of the ruling South West Africa Peoples' Organisation (Swapo) had an 80% percent stake in the firm and added that Nujoma also held a share.

Some of the loan money has disappeared

The loan, which was to be paid back in May, is still outstanding, and some of the money has disappeared into bank accounts in South Africa and Uruguay, the daily said.

An affidavit by Green, said a former Swapo member of parliament, Ralph Blaauw, had approached him on January 3, saying he had been "sent by (a) higher authority" to negotiate the loan.

"He (Blaauw) also told me the president had a share in the company but it would not be disclosed anywhere," the affidavit said.

The social security commission is a state-owned agency, which collects monthly contributions from all employees and employers and makes payments to ailing workers or those on maternity leave.

Nujoma, 76, stepped down in March after 15 years in power in Namibia, a former German colony until World War I that was ruled by apartheid South Africa until its independence in 1990.

- AFP