Former Roads Contractor Company (RCC) chief executive Kelly Nghixulifwa has to return to the Windhoek High Court for a presentence hearing today, after being found guilty on four charges following a long-running trial.
Judge Christie Liebenberg found Nghixulifwa guilty on one count of fraud and three charges of corruptly using his position as chief executive of the state-owned RCC, in a verdict delivered yesterday.
A co-accused of Nghixulifwa, Hafeni Nghinamwaami, was convicted on one count of fraud in connection with a payment of close to N$30 000 that the RCC made to settle an account that a company of Nghinamwaami had with an auditing firm in 2006.
Another accused who stood trial with Nghixulifwa and Nghinamwaami, Anna Ndoroma, was acquitted on the same charge of fraud, which was the only remaining count she faced.
The charges date back to 2004, 2005 and 2006, when the RCC was involved in the B1 City property development project in Windhoek, and when a new head office for the state-owned company was being constructed in Windhoek.
Nghixulifwa, Nghinamwaami and Ndoroma denied guilt on all charges when their trial started before Liebenberg in November 2020, after six years of delays in the matter.
In September last year, after the state concluded its case against the three accused, Liebenberg found Nghixulifwa not guilty on three of the 11 charges on which he was being prosecuted, while Ndoroma was found not guilty on two of the three charges she had been facing and Nghinamwaami was discharged on two counts.
In the judgement delivered yesterday, Liebenberg found that Nghixulifwa used his position as RCC chief executive to benefit the company /Ae //Gams Engineering, which was involved in the B1 City property development project in Windhoek.
The judge found that Nghixulifwa used close to N$4,5 million in RCC funds in October 2005 to pay the purchase price and transfer fees for the land on which the B1 City property development was to take place.
The land was sold by the City of Windhoek and was transferred into the name of /Ae //Gams Engineering as purchaser.
Liebenberg also found that Nghixulifwa kept the RCC’s board of directors in the dark about the use of RCC funds for the property transaction, and that he must have known he was acting outside the scope of his powers as RCC chief executive when he did so.
On the fraud charge on which Nghixulifwa was convicted, the judge found that he deceived the RCC’s board of directors at the end of June 2006 by informing them that a mortgage bond in an amount of close to N$4,5 million had been registered in favour of the RCC after it had paid the purchase price and transfer fees for the B1 City project land.
In reality, though, the registration of a mortgage bond was finalised only towards the end of 2006, Liebenberg noted.
The judge further found that Nghixulifwa used his position as RCC chief executive to benefit Nghinamwaami’s company Cradle Investment by getting the RCC to pay close to N$30 000 to an auditing firm that had done work for the company.
Nghixulifwa was also convicted of having used his position as RCC chief executive in March 2006 to authorise a payment of close to N$93 000 by the RCC to settle the arrears on a home loan account of an employee of the company.
Nghixulifwa later paid that money back to the RCC, Liebenberg noted.
Nghixulifwa, Nghinamwaami and Ndoroma have been free on bail of N$60 000 each since their first appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in February 2014.
Liebenberg extended the bail of Nghixulifwa and Nghinamwaami when he scheduled their presentence hearing for today.
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