By Werner Menges

Copyright namibian

An anti-corruption Commission investigator is claiming that a plan to help former National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) manager Cedric Willemse escape was foiled after he was admitted to a hospital following his arrest two months ago.

Willemse (52) laughed this off when public prosecutor Basson Lilungwe informed him in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Friday that the investigator will testify that a plan for his escape was devised after his arrest.

“There was no plan to escape,” Willemse said, adding that the claim confirms a description by a defence lawyer of the investigator as “a storyteller”.

Lilungwe continued that according to the investigator, a vehicle in which Willemse was transported from Windhoek Correctional Facility to a hospital on 11 July – three days after his arrest – was followed by a Mercedes-Benz of a police reservist. The reservist was described as “a close friend” of former Namcor managing director Imms Mulunga, who is also one of the accused in the case in which Willemse is charged in connection with alleged fraud and corruption at the state-owned fuel company.

“That reservist is well known to one of the accused persons, and he was going to facilitate your escape from the hospital,” Lilungwe said.

Willemse replied: “I don’t know anything about this. To be honest, this is news for me.”

Lilungwe also said the investigator would tell the court the reservist was guarding Willemse in hospital, until the investigator ordered him to leave the hospital because of his friendship with Mulunga.

Willemse has told magistrate Olga Muharukua he was hospitalised after his blood-sugar levels spiked because he was not allowed to have access to the medication he needs to treat his diabetes.

During the bail hearing on Friday, Willemse also disputed that payments totalling nearly N$2 million that were made to him over a five-week period in 2022 were bribes and kickbacks that he received.

The payments, made into his bank account by the close corporation Quality Meat Supplies of Victor Malima, who is wanted in connection with the Namcor fraud and corruption case, were for meat that he sold to Malima’s close corporation, Willemse said.

Quality Meat Supplies paid N$1.96 million into Willemse’s bank account from 15 July 2022 to 18 August 2022, the magistrate was informed during the bail hearing.

The amount was made up of payments of N$150 000, N$960 000 and N$350 000 during a two-week period from 15 July 2022, and a payment of $500 000 on 18 August 2022.

Willemse denied an accusation from Lilungwe that the payments were “bribes and kickbacks” to him, linked to Namcor’s purchase of nine filling stations at Namibian Defence Force bases from the fuel company Enercon Namibia in July 2022.

The payments were for meat that he sold to Quality Meat Supplies, he said.

He will be able to produce invoices to show what the payments were for, but is unable to access his records while he is in custody and his laptop computer is under the control of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Willemse said.

Willemse, who is applying to be granted bail after more than two months in custody on fraud, corruption and other charges, also denied that he received bribes and kickbacks as a result of allowing the fuel firms Enercon Namibia and Erongo Petroleum to exceed their credit limits with Namcor.

Willemse gave the denial when Lilungwe questioned him about debt of N$266 million that Erongo Petroleum owed Namcor, while it had a credit limit of N$10 million with the state-owned fuel company.

Figures quoted by Lilungwe show that from October 2020 to May 2023, Erongo Petroleum accumulated debt totalling N$239.8 million with Namcor, which supplied fuel to Erongo Petroleum. Namcor also calculated that Erongo Petroleum owed the state-owned company interest of N$26.8 million on its debt.

“It’s totally not true,” Willemse said when Lilungwe put it to him that he received bribes and kickbacks from Erongo Petroleum to allow it to exceed its credit limit and accumulate debt of N$266 million with Namcor.

“A credit limit is not cast in stone,” Willemse said.

He said Namcor’s credit policy allowed discretion to be used and left room for decisions to allow credit limits to be exceeded, depending on the scale of business done with a customer and the customer’s risk profile.

The bail hearing is continuing.