Deputy prisons chief awaits PG's decision

WINDHOEK NAMPA

Deputy Commissioner of Prisons Tuhafeni Hangula, who is charged with fraud over the authenticity of his school certificate, is still awaiting a decision from the office of the prosecutor-general.
Hangula made another appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court yesterday, only to be informed that the prosecutor-general's decision on the matter was not yet before court.
The decision taken by the office of Prosecutor-General Martha Ekandjo-Imalwa has not yet been made available to the prosecution team. I, therefore, ask the court for a postponement of this case to 14 June 2013 in order to allow the office of the prosecutor-general to pronounce itself on the matter, said public prosecutor Arrie Husselman when he asked Magistrate Hileni Kavara for a further postponement.
Hangula,44, is free on bail of N$2 000.
The deputy commissioner faces charges of fraud, forgery and uttering.
The charges against Hangula stem from allegations that the Standard 10 school certificate he has been using is not genuine.
According to earlier media reports, Hangula testified about this issue in the High Court in Windhoek in October last year during a trial on a defamation claim that he had instituted against a weekly newspaper about an article which did not deal with his school qualifications.
Documents placed before the court in that trial indicated that the correctness of Hangula's Standard 10 certificate was confirmed in a letter which was signed by an official of the Ministry of Education and Culture in April 1995.
However, in a letter which the Ministry of Education's director of national examinations and assessment, Charles Nyambe had written to the office of the ombudsman in March 2011, it was stated that it was established with a subsequent investigation of records in the Education Ministry that Hangula's school certificate was not genuine.
Hangula also testified during the hearing of his defamation claim that he was employed in the public service before Namibia attained independence on the basis of the Standard 8 qualification, which he had at that time.
However, Hangula has continued to improve his academic qualifications, in spite of questions about the validity of his school certificate over the past few years.
He graduated at the Polytechnic of Namibia with a Bachelor of Criminal Justice (Correctional Management) degree in 2012.