ACC investigates Zelna Hengari over tender allegations linked to husband, minister Mac Hengari

Namiibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has investigated former Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) managing director Zelna Hengari over allegations of awarding tenders to her husband, minister Mac Hengari.

Hengari is the newly appointed minister of agriculture, fisheries, water and land reform.

This has surfaced at a time when questions are being raised about whether president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah conducted due diligence when appointing her Cabinet.

Hengari is already facing rape allegations, which he has strongly denied.

Efforts to obtain comment from his wife, Zelna, were this week unsuccessful. ACC deputy director general Erna van der Merwe this week, however, confirmed that the anti-graft body investigated Hengari and his wife, but said the case was closed in 2023.

“This docket was closed in 2023. It was a full-scope investigation, not a wish-wash job . . . and there is nothing that points to a tender given to the husband,” she said.

Part of the investigation focused on Zelna allegedly awarding tenders to companies that would then subcontract work to entities linked to her husband.

“I don’t know where that allegation comes from.

The agreement was signed by Zelna Hengari on behalf of the Mariental-Heat Construction joint venture,” she said.

Van der Merwe said the ACC is willing to reopen the investigation if there is enough evidence to do so.

She said the contract between NWR and Mariental Construction CC was a joint venture with Heat Construction. “They were the people who actually did the work when it came to the Hardap project for NWR.”

Mariental Construction was 100% owned by one ‘Petrus’, Van der Merwe said.

The Namibian on Wednesday reported that Nandi-Ndaitwah opted not to involve the Namibia Central Intelligence Service (NCIS) or the police before appointing her Cabinet members.

She mostly relied on an informal vetting process, and now faces criticism for appointing tainted politicians.

Traditionally, the NCIS vets candidates for key government positions like executive and deputy executive directors.
However, this established protocol was reportedly bypassed for Cabinet ministers.

‘NOT CONTACTED’

Hengari yesterday told The Namibian he was never involved in an ACC investigation.

“My wife has been out of public office. What tender did she give me? Furthermore, I have never ever been called by the ACC to answer any case,” he said.

The minister said the media is biased against him.

“It is not lost on me that The Namibian has hounded Zelna while she was in office and now seems intent on the same mobilisation of bias against me,” he said.

The Namibian understands the ACC has interviewed senior officials in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

A DARK PAST

Zelna was suspended from NWR in 2019 after allegations of maladministration and questionable partnerships with private companies.

She took charge of NWR in 2014, but her reign was characterised by frosty relations with directors and some staff members.

Her troubled tenure saw three ministers occupy the environment and tourism ministry, to which NWR reports.

The period also saw a change of three boards of directors – all having difficulties with Zelna.

Her ascendency to the managing director position coincided with the departure of board chairperson Jackie Asheeke in December 2012, by which time she and Asheeke had already locked horns when Zelna was still NWR’s company secretary.

In December 2023 Zelna sued the NWR, the minister of environment and tourism, and the minister of public enterprises (now under the Ministry of Finance and Social Grants Management) for N$7.5 million for defamation claims.

The NWR board of directors released a media statement in April 2019 amid allegations that Zelna concluded a joint venture agreement between NWR and the company, Sun Karros Lifestyle Safaris without the approval of the NWR board.
Judge Boas Usiku dismissed Zelna’s claim and ordered that she pay NWR’s legal costs instead.

He found that although parts of the media statement Zelna complained about were defamatory, they were true and made in the public interest.

Usiku said in his judgement that the evidence before him showed Zelna concluded the joint venture agreement with Sun Karros without the knowledge, approval or authorisation of the NWR board.