WINDHOEK, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Namibia’s
state-owned fishing firm Fishcor has suspended its chief executive
following media reports that he and other government officials conspired
with Iceland’s biggest fishing company to receive kickbacks in exchange
for fishing rights.
Fishcor
Acting Chairperson Bennet Kangumu told Reuters on Tuesday that CEO Mike
Nghipunya had been sent home a week ago, following international and
local media reports that he was involved in the scandal.
“We placed him (Nghipunya) on leave to allow preliminary investigations,” Kangumu said referring to investigations by Fishcor.
Fishcor has not previously commented on any role its officials might have played in the scandal.
Reuters was unable to contact Nghipunya for comment.
Two former
ministers have been arrested and charged, accused of conspiring with
Icelandic fishing company Samherji to receive payments worth millions of
dollars in exchange for horse mackerel fishing quotas.
Samherji and the former ministers, Bernhardt Esau and Sakeus Shanghala, have all denied wrongdoing.
Esau, the then
fisheries minister, allegedly stripped some private companies of fishing
quotas. Fishcor officials, according to the media reports, passed the
quotas on to Samherji in exchange for corrupt payments.
The charges
against Esau and former justice minister Shanghala, along with four
others implicated in the scandal, state they solicited, accepted or
agreed to accept 100 million Namibian dollars ($6.8 million) from
Samherji’s Namibian subsidiaries from 2014-19 to secure quotas.
(Reporting by Nyasha Nyaungwa; Editing by Tim Cocks and Pravin Char)
