Ipinge files case over ‘missing’ Walvis funds
WALVIS BAY - The Walvis Bay Urban constituency councillor, Knowledge Ipinge, has formally laid a charge of theft, fraud and corruption against the Walvis Bay municipality and contractors that were involved in the alleged overpayment of funds as part of the massive urban land servicing programme.
The programme saw 700 houses built at the town.
Ipinge alleged N$24 million is unaccounted for from the programme. The charge was filed at the Kuisebmond police station on Wednesday morning by Ipinge who said he will also file a separate case with the Anti-Corruption Commission in due course.
Ipinge’s actions against the municipality started in October this year when he objected the municipality’s audited annual financial statements for the financial year ending 30 June 2018 due to the adverse audit report the municipality received from the auditor general.
“Upon studying the figures on the produced financial statements, I realised that millions that were paid to the Walvis Bay municipality through the MULSP did not reflect on the audited financial statements presented to us by the municipality,” he said.
According to Ipinge, on the same day, through the Erongo Regional Council chairperson, he requested for a detailed feedback on the missing millions within 48 hours.
“No clear answer of the missing money and the overpayments to contractors were given. Hence, investigations should happen, and the culprits should be prosecuted. It is on that basis that we opened the case,” he said.
He added it is now in the hands of the police to take the necessary action so that those responsible for managing public funds are held accountable.
Contacted for comment, Walvis Bay municipality CEO Muronga Haingura said that he cannot comment seeing that a charge was filed with the police.
However, Haingura during an earlier interview with New Era denied there was money missing from the programme.
Haingura added the money in question was in a suspense account and not unaccounted for.
“I can confirm that we have money available in our account and we are busy reconciling. Money paid over by banks without a reference or an erf number is put in a suspense account until we can verify and allocate it to the right accounts. We have more than N$24 million in our accounts that is not yet allocated,” he said.