Namibians in $ busts: CEO forced to resign for ‘helping thief flee’
|Published
SCANDAL: Cyril Ramaphosa. File photo: Phando Jikelo/African News Agency (ANA)
Heads are rolling in Namibia in the wake of the robbery at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm.
It is alleged a gang including four Namibian nationals broke into the farm in February 2020 after Ramaphosa’s domestic worker sent photos and told them about the US dollars concealed under furniture in the house.
Now, the former acting CEO for the National Fishing Corporation of Namibia (Fishcor), has been forced to resign after his arrest for helping the alleged mastermind behind the robbery, Immanuwela David.
Paulus Ngalangi confirmed to The Sunday Independent that he was arrested and is out on N$6000 bail.
Ngalangi claims he was asked by a friend, whom he refused to name, to fetch David, after he illegally entered Namibia by crossing the Orange River in a canoe on June 12, 2020.
“I honestly didn’t know him or even that he was involved in the robbery at President Ramaphosa’s farm. I was just doing a friend a favour,” Ngalangi said.
He says he and Sergeant Hendrick Hidipo Nghede found David waiting at a petrol station in Noordoewer carrying a small bag of clothes.
Ngalangi drove David in his BMW X5, accompanied by Sergeant Nghede.
He denies being paid for the robbery, or that David was carrying the N$7 million that is claimed he smuggled to Namibia.
Ngalangi and Nghede are expected to go on trial in August for their role in helping David.
After the robbery on 9 February 2020, David allegedly went on a shopping spree, buying a house in Rustenburg, a Lamborghini and a Mercedes-Benz G-wagon, which was later stolen in Cape Town.
He also planned a lavish wedding, but it never happened due to his arrest in Namibia on June 14, 2020.
At the time, he was in Namibia to buy a car dealership in Swakopmund, where he and his partner were allegedly going to sell cars stolen and hijacked in South Africa.
A confidential report seen by The Sunday Independent compiled by former Namibian crime investigations department head Nelius Becker, dated June 21, 2020, states that David told police he paid a syndicate allegedly smuggling people between South Africa and Namibia R50 000 to help him enter the country illegally.
Becker also dropped a bombshell when he reported that “discussions are allegedly ongoing between the countries’ two presidents”.
Ramaphosa acknowledged there was a robbery at his farm, but he denied asking Namibian President Hage Geingob for help. Geingob also denied any wrongdoing.
Wally Rhoode, the head of the Presidential Protection Service, was tasked to investigate the robbery, and allegedly kidnapped and tortured the suspects to hand back the remaining loot.
Former State Security Agency director-general Arthur Fraser, who opened a criminal case against Ramaphosa and Rhoode at Rosebank SAPS last week, claims the robbers stole about $4 million.
David’s four accomplices returned to Namibia legally after the robbery and remain at large.
According to The Sunday Independent, David pleaded guilty to two charges on November 13, 2020 – for entering Namibia illegally and for failing to declare goods he brought into the country.
He was found guilty and sentenced to three years in jail or a fine of N$20 000.
In his affidavit to the police, Fraser stated after Rhoode arrested the suspects, including the domestic worker, the group was allegedly paid R150 000 each to buy their silence.
Ramaphosa has yet to explain where the money came from and why he didn’t bank it.