PSEMAS employee gets bail
A senior official in the finance ministry this week appeared in court on a corruption charge after being arrested by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Llewellyn Bezuidenhout, who works as a senior accountant at the Public Service Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS), allegedly took a bribe from a business owner to speed up and prioritise the processing of medical claims.
Bezuidenhout was arrested last week Friday on a charge of corruptly and intentionally using his position in order to obtain a gratification for himself.
He appeared before the Windhoek Magistrate's Court on Monday and was granted N$10 000 bail. His case was postponed to 29 June for further investigation.
According to the ACC the case involved medical aid claims to the value of N$1.35 million dating back to 2016.
The ACC says a complaint was made on 13 April by a service provider for various medical practitioners, indicating that claims submitted were not being processed.
Documentation for the claims in question was apparently lost and the service provider had to approach PSEMAS with a motivation and copies of the claims in order for them to re-consider, evaluate and then authorise Methealth Namibia to process and pay the claims.
These claims are normally referred to as “stale approvals”. The particular service provider allegedly had made efforts since November 2017 to get PSEMAS to consider these claims for the period October 2016 to February 2017.
According to the ACC, a whistleblower became suspicious because of the delay in the processing of the claims and during a meeting with Bezuidenhout recorded their conversation.
Bezuidenhout suggested that staff at Methealth, the administrators of PSEMAS, needed to be paid “incentives” in order to process the claims and to prioritise them.
The whistleblower approached the Anti-Corruption Commission and all further conversations between her and Bezuidenhout were recorded.
Bezuidenhout then allegedly suggested that an amount of N$50 000 should be paid to him in order to ensure that the claims would be processed as a priority.
During a sting operation Bezuidenhout was paid N$40 000, after which he started providing proof of processing of some of the claims a few days later and requested payment of the remaining N$10 000.
In addition, the ACC questioned an employee of Methealth Namibia about allegations that she had received N$1 000 from Bezuidenhout for urgently processing the claims. She was not detained, but is the subject of further investigation.
The ACC said it had the past received allegations that claims were being “slowed down” in order to create an environment where claimants would be tempted to pay bribes in order to get their claims processed.
That information was insufficient to initiate criminal cases, though.
The ACC requests anyone else who has been requested to pay bribes and eventually paid bribes to come forward and to disclose such information to the Commission.
ELLANIE SMIT
Llewellyn Bezuidenhout, who works as a senior accountant at the Public Service Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS), allegedly took a bribe from a business owner to speed up and prioritise the processing of medical claims.
Bezuidenhout was arrested last week Friday on a charge of corruptly and intentionally using his position in order to obtain a gratification for himself.
He appeared before the Windhoek Magistrate's Court on Monday and was granted N$10 000 bail. His case was postponed to 29 June for further investigation.
According to the ACC the case involved medical aid claims to the value of N$1.35 million dating back to 2016.
The ACC says a complaint was made on 13 April by a service provider for various medical practitioners, indicating that claims submitted were not being processed.
Documentation for the claims in question was apparently lost and the service provider had to approach PSEMAS with a motivation and copies of the claims in order for them to re-consider, evaluate and then authorise Methealth Namibia to process and pay the claims.
These claims are normally referred to as “stale approvals”. The particular service provider allegedly had made efforts since November 2017 to get PSEMAS to consider these claims for the period October 2016 to February 2017.
According to the ACC, a whistleblower became suspicious because of the delay in the processing of the claims and during a meeting with Bezuidenhout recorded their conversation.
Bezuidenhout suggested that staff at Methealth, the administrators of PSEMAS, needed to be paid “incentives” in order to process the claims and to prioritise them.
The whistleblower approached the Anti-Corruption Commission and all further conversations between her and Bezuidenhout were recorded.
Bezuidenhout then allegedly suggested that an amount of N$50 000 should be paid to him in order to ensure that the claims would be processed as a priority.
During a sting operation Bezuidenhout was paid N$40 000, after which he started providing proof of processing of some of the claims a few days later and requested payment of the remaining N$10 000.
In addition, the ACC questioned an employee of Methealth Namibia about allegations that she had received N$1 000 from Bezuidenhout for urgently processing the claims. She was not detained, but is the subject of further investigation.
The ACC said it had the past received allegations that claims were being “slowed down” in order to create an environment where claimants would be tempted to pay bribes in order to get their claims processed.
That information was insufficient to initiate criminal cases, though.
The ACC requests anyone else who has been requested to pay bribes and eventually paid bribes to come forward and to disclose such information to the Commission.
ELLANIE SMIT
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