Former deputy agriculture minister and Rehoboth West Urban constituency councillor Theo Diergaardt has died.
A family member told Eagel FM that Diergaardt died of kidney failure Wednesday at a private hospital in Windhoek.
Diergaardt resigned from the deputy ministerial position when he lost the constituency to the United People Movement.
In January 2011 he was appointed deputy minister of lands and resettlement, and in March 2015 he was appointed one of two deputy ministers of Agriculture, Water and Forestry.
Diergaardt grew up in Rehoboth and attended school there at Dr Lemmer High School. He graduated from Peninsula Technikon with a Diploma in Cost and Management Accounting.
Afterwards, he obtained a Higher Diploma and a master’s degree in the same discipline from Technicon SA, a distance university.
He was a member of the National Council of Namibia as a representative of the Hardap Region from 2004 to 2015.
Diergaardt’s life was never without scandals after he was accused last year together with Willem Cloete fraud and forgery for which he appeared in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court and wad bailed out on N$20 000.
They were accused of allegedly defrauding a German couple out of their property.
It is alleged that Cloete in 2013 wrongfully, unlawfully, falsely and with intent defrauded Ronald and Martha zu Bentheim as well as the deeds office, by pretending he had the authority by the general power of attorney to sell the couple’s home in Bismarck Street, Windhoek.
Diergaardt was accused of unlawfully and falsely forging a general power of attorney, which resulted in the German couple losing their home.
He was also probed for theft together with his mother Amanda over N$19 248 and N$19 730 respectively. He paid back the money.
