Namgomar ownership to dominate Gustavo testimony today

JEMIMA BEUKES

WINDHOEK

The State is expected to press Fishrot accused Ricardo Gustavo about what links his co-accused in the matter had to Namgomar Pesca Namibia, for which he is officially registered as the only director, yet the entity allegedly paid millions of dollars to those individuals.

State prosecutor Cliff Litubezi had kicked off this line of questioning yesterday – at some point to the annoyance of Gustavo – but the cross-examination was halted to continue today.

The roles of former justice minister Sacky Shanghala and James Hatuikulipi in Namgomar Namibia are particularly of interest to the State, which alleges they received millions of dollars through the entity.

Gustavo himself admitted to have pocketed N$12 million from this entity, but he argues this was not untoward.

Angolan connection

The State yesterday produced what it says is a business card indicating Shanghala as a director in the Angolan entity Namgomar Pesca Limitade, the parent company of Namgomar Pesca Namibia.

Namgomar Pesca Limitade received a 50 000-tonne fishing quota from Namibia, through an agreement between the governments of Namibia and Angola, the State alleges. .

“He was involved, my Lord, with ad hoc work, I believe in the initial stages for Namgomar Pesca Limitade,” Gustavo said of Shanghala.

“I know there was the initial stages of setting up the agreement, and I believe that given his closeness to James Hatuikulipi that he would have probably looked at some of the agreements, pertaining to co-operation, distribution and catching on the Angolan side,” he said.

According to Gustavo, this ad hoc work was done during the time Shanghala was serving as the chairperson of the Law Reform and Development Commission (LRDC).

In fact, he was never informed who the shareholders were of Namgomar Pesca Limitade and Namgomar Pesca Namibia. The N$12 million he earned though director's fees and loans from Namgomar was accrued with the full knowledge of the shareholders.

From the same company, he made a total of around N$6.9 million as a salary between 2014 to 2019.

He also added that there no Namibians were involved as shareholders in Namgomar Pesca Limitade and Namgomar Pesca Namibia, and neither was there a joint venture agreement.

The State pressed on why Namibians earned millions from this arrangement if that was the case.

‘Diabolical lie’

The court put it to him that in 2013, he (Gustavo) along with James Hatuikulipi, Shanghala, Stefan Johannsson, Tamson Hatuikulipi and former fisheries minister Bernard Esau had attended meetings where they plotted how Icelandic fishing company Samherji would benefit from this Namgomar Pesca project, as well as how Shanghala and Esau would benefit.

To this, Gustavo said: “My, Lord it is a diabolical lie. I was never involved in planning what counsel just described. In fact, my first trip to do work with Namgomar Pesca was in January 2014.”

He cannot recall a meeting where they had these clandestine meetings or arrangements.

Gustavo told the court that Tamson Hatuikulipi had an arrangement in place with the Samherji group of companies. In fact, Tamson brought them to Namibian shores, while his cousin James Hatuikulipi helped Samherji to finalise the agreement.

“It is common cause that James was dealing with the Angolans, Tamson was dealing with the Samherji group of companies, so there would be overlapping discussion. In the initial stages, there were one or two emails I would have sent to Shanghala - I cannot recall off the top of my head what it was about,” he said.

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