Two Bipa officials suspended over forgery allegations in N$50m Lithium deal

The Business and Intellectual Property Authority (Bipa) has suspended two officials for allegedly enabling the forging of documents linked to the sale of a N$50-million lithium entity.

The suspension came a few months after a mining company accused businessman Peter Shifwaku of falsifying documents to sell an entity involved in the controversial sale.

Shifwaku, a beneficiary of at least N18 million in the N$50-million transaction, is being accused of removing names from the registration of another private company to enable him to sell it to a Chinese outfit.

Shifwaku, a cousin of minister of mines and energy Tom Alweendo’s former technical assistant, Ralph Muyamba, was in the spotlight last year after he emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the sale of a lithium company to Xinfeng Investments.

Muyamba and Shifwaku have both denied wrongdoing.

The deal has attracted the attention of Namibian authorities which are said to have made a breakthrough in recent weeks.

Bipa spokesperson Ockert Jansen confirmed the suspension of the employees, which he said was in connection with flouting internal processes related to the company’s amendment.

“The suspension matter is internal, and to ensure no prejudice to the employees, all such matters are deemed confidential until the internal processes are completed,” he said.

The officials, who have not been named, are accused of allowing the change of company ownership without the consent of other shareholders.

Documents seen by The Namibian show that Hineni Property Investments, a subsidiary of KCI Holdings, entered into an agreement with Orange River Exploration and Mining on 12 December 2022, to purchase 85% of the shares of EPL 8397. This is the same EPL Xinfeng bought from Shifwaku for N$50 million in July 2022.

KCI is owned by businessman Michael Dausab.

The EPL, which is situated south of Brandberg Mountain near Uis, is where Xinfeng is currently doing large-scale lithium mining on the claims of its joint venture company Longfire.

In the letter, Dausab claims his partner, Gideon Smith, was supposed to hold the shares until the EPL was transferred to Hineni after securing an environmental clearance certificate.

“What is important is that prior to Shifwaku fraudulently falsifying the signature of Deon Smith, the Xinfeng parties resolved to register a private company for the purposes of registering 10 mining claims on the EPL8397 area.

“Permission for the pegging by the Xinfeng representatives was given by Shifwaku on 27 June 2022,” Dausab said.

He further claims this happened despite Shifwaku holding only a 1% member interest in Orange River.

Dausab claims that Shifwaku was playing them off against Xinfeng during the negotiations process for the EPL.

“The initial price was N$5 million, but they kept hiking the price. We ended up agreeing to N$19 million.

“That is when we signed the agreement and paid the first instalments, but we suspect they got the offer from Xinfeng and decided not to clear the funds at the bank, because it was paid in from Dubai by our partners,” said Dausab.

He said Smith was only a proxy of the company.

Dausab yesterday said they are fighting to get the shares back, since they had an agreement in place with Shifwaku.

“We spend money to acquire the drilling reports from London. Why would we invest so much and not go through with the deal?

We just want things to be done correctly,” he said. The approval of the EPL, according to the mining ministry map, is pending only an environmental clearance certificate. Bipa chief executive officer Vivienne Katjiuongua last year told The Namibian she was in the process of reporting a case to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the police to investigate fraud and breaches at the authority.

Katjiuongua said the investigations would look into how internal procedures and rules have been circumvented for ownership of Orange River Mining to be transferred to Xinfeng.

DENIAL

Shifwaku denies cheating anyone, and has been demanding payment of N$9 million from Hineni in correspondence over the stake. However, Hineni has not made the payment, which was supposed to be done in two instalments of N$4,5 million each.

“The 85% member’s interest that was transferred to him (Smith) was for the security of payment, and no payment has been made to me to date, so there is no valid reason as to why Smith still holds these interests in my company.

“It’s not for the purpose of theft,” Shifwaku said in a letter dated 22 July 2022.

Shikwafu last month told The Namibian payment from Hineni was never received.

Shifwaku referred to a High Court judgement finding that Hineni never paid any money, leading to the cancellation of the agreement.

“That is the reason the agreement was cancelled. I’m at liberty to do business with anyone,” said Shifwaku.

Hineni took the matter to court last year, but withdrew it on 8 December.