NAC bosses face the sack

AUDIT firm Deloitte has recommended that the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) charges its suspended chief executive officer, Tamer El-Kallawi, and engineering department boss, Courage Silombela, for corruption over the awarding of tenders worth over N$360 million.

The state-owned company is responsible for managing eight airports across the country, but its existence has lately largely been dominated by allegations of corruption, bribery and fraud.

The new NAC board of directors, led by businessman Rodgers Kauta, cancelled several questionable contracts when they took charge of the parastatal last year.

The board is also going after officials responsible for alleged corruption. To achieve this, the board first suspended El-Kallawi and Silombela in June this year.

Kauta announced at the time that El-Kallawi and Silombela had been suspended on full pay, pending the outcome of a full investigation into alleged irregularities and corruption in the awarding of contracts worth over N$360 million, among others.

The board appointed audit firm Deloitte to investigate the duo.

“Due to the seriousness of the alleged transgressions and provisions of the disciplinary code, the board had no other choice than to place them under immediate suspension,” Kauta said.

The Deloitte report was submitted to the NAC board during the last two weeks, sources said.

Efforts to get comment from the NAC board were not successful, but three people with knowledge of the Deloitte report said the curtains are coming down on the two suspended executives.

They asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the report.

One source read to The Namibian parts of the report which say Deloitte had advised the board to set up a disciplinary committee to charge El-Kallawi and Silombela over several irregularities.

The Namibian could not establish all the charges against El-Kallawi, but documents show that Silombela faces allegations of bribery, negligence, tampering with documents and fraud.

Silombela declined to comment when approached by The Namibian this week. El-Kallawi could not be reached for comment as his phone went unanswered.

The audit firm, sources said, also suggested that the NAC can terminate the contracts of the two executives.

Indications from people briefed about the situation at the NAC are that the board wants to charge the two, and subsequently use the outcomes of the disciplinary process to fire them.

Another recommendation in the report is for the NAC to recover money which the company lost due to the duo’s actions. It is not clear how much the NAC lost because of bad deals entered into by the parastatal and private companies.

The recovery of lost money could lead to the NAC instituting a civil case against the two executives, an official briefed on the Deloitte document said, adding that “the report is serious”.

“There is an option to go after their assets if they do not pay back the lost money.”

A civil case is usually started by a private person or business who has suffered damages.

The tenders which implicated the two executives include the N$150 million contract to upgrade security systems at the Hosea Kutako International Airport and Eros Airport in Windhoek, the N$210 million Ondangwa Airport renovations, and N$15 million for a spying cameras contract.

El-Kallawi was also linked to the controversial N$7 billion Hosea Kutako International Airport construction contract as he travelled to Mozambique and China courtesy of Anhui Foreign Economic Construction, the firm that was awarded the initial airport upgrade contract.

The suspension of El-Kallawi and Silombela is part of a drive by the board to hold executives accountable for their decisions.

Officials and politicians at the works ministry are, however, not impressed with that agenda. Some officials have tried to discredit NAC board members by circulating fake documents to the media.

The decision by the board to go after the NAC executives is one of the rare cases in government where officials are held accountable.

Other forensic reports at parastatals are either ignored, or hidden. The Namibian reported last year about a forensic report into Air Namibia done by Deloitte for N$6 million. Many recommendations in that report were never implemented, and were instead pushed to the Anti-Corruption Commission for further investigations, while those singled out in the report continue to roam free.

Another forensic audit carried out by EY auditors at TransNamib for N$1,8 million found a lot of irregularities, yet the findings and recommendations were ignored.

Unlike the NAC which is crafting a plan to hold officials to account, the NHE board chaired by Sam Shivute has passed that responsibility to the ACC for further investigation. The anti-corruption watchdog says the housing parastatal should discipline its workers accused of wrongdoing.