Frozen assets returned to Teko Trading trio

THE previously frozen assets of Public Service Commission member Teckla Lameck, her business partner, Kongo Mokaxwa, and Chinese national Yang Fan were returned to their control on Monday.

The High Court on Friday last week discharged an interim restraint order that had been issued over millions of Namibia dollars worth of assets connected to Lameck, Mokaxwa, Yang and the latter’s Chinese employer, Nuctech Company. The court also ordered that control over the assets, which had in effect been frozen in terms of an interim restraint order under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act that was issued on July 6 last year, should be returned to the control of Lameck, Mokaxwa, Yang and Nuctech.The Prosecutor General however later on Friday filed a notice with the court to indicate that she intends to take the ruling that was given by Judge President Petrus Damaseb and Judge Collins Parker on appeal to the Supreme Court.As a result of the pending appeal, the assets covered by the interim restraint order were then not released.Having considered the law on the issue whether the appeal keeps the discharged interim restraint order in place, the Prosecutor General has in the meantime advised the curator under whose control the assets had been over the past six months to return the assets to the control of Lameck, Mokaxwa, Yang and the Chinese company.Lawyer Sisa Namandje, who is representing Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang, told The Namibian late on Tuesday that the assets had eventually been returned to his clients on Monday and during Tuesday.The assets include bank accounts, vehicles, farms and houses.With Friday’s court order, the amount of money that Yang would have to pay to be released on bail in the criminal case in which he, Lameck and Mokaxwa are still charged with corruption, fraud and bribery has increased to N$1 Million.Yang has remained in custody after he was granted bail in an amount of N$250 000 in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on August 11 last year. Lameck and Mokaxwa were granted bail of N$50 000 each. Magistrate Gerrit van Pletzen also ordered that if the three suspects’ assets, which at that stage were still frozen in terms of the restraint order of July 6, were to be released, Yang would have to pay an additional amount of N$750 000 on top of the N$250 000 at which his bail was set at first.Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang have to appear in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court again on April 8.They are charged as a result of their involvement in a multi-million dollar contract for the provision of Chinese-made X-ray scanning equipment to the Ministry of Finance.It is alleged that a ‘commission’ payment of over N$42 million that the manufacturer of the equipment, Nuctech Company, made to Teko Trading CC, a close corporation of which Lameck and Mokaxwa are the two members, in March last year was a corrupt payment that constituted the proceeds of crime.Yang was employed as Nuctech’s representative in southern Africa. At the same time, he also took up employment with Teko Trading, which signed agreements with the Chinese company to supposedly act as its agent in the deal with the Finance Ministry.