
By: Kelvin Chiringa
The Secretary-General of the Namibia Bus and Taxi Association (NABTA), Pendapala Nakathingo, has now walked out of court a free man after he was arraigned on charges of fraud and forgery.
Nakathingo was accused of illegally selling 20 000 essential service provider permits to mostly short- and long-distance NABTA members last year around April.
He said his arrest was a political ploy orchestrated by a rival union, the Namibia Public Passengers Transport Association (NPPA) facilitated by an official from the ministry of trade who allegedly reported him to the police.
He said the battles in the transport sector between rival unions have degenerated into personal fights that targeted his personality.
“They are the ones who cooked up and came up with these stories before I was called by the police. NPPA is a breakaway union and they called One Africa TV for them to be interviewed against what (I was) doing for NABTA, not for their association and for the entire public transport members.
“I issued these certificates, not only for the NABTA members, it was for whoever was going to operate because that time of Covid was not only to save (my) own members,” he said.
Despite admitting that his arrest has affected his professional image and credibility, Nakathingo says he has no intentions to sue the trade ministry on a defamation charge.
“If you are called a thief, no one wants to be associated with a thief. But for me, I know the truth behind the scenes, it did not affect my position as a representative of the association. It doesn’t take me from my position of truth. This has created, however, very serious tension between my office and our members.
“Am I planning to sue the ministry of trade because of the defamation of character or whatsoever, the tarnishing of my name? You know, we were brought up in a culture that when somebody offended you do not retaliate. I know that the government at some point was misled with this particular information,” he said.
Last year, a weekly paper reported that Nakathingo, who had been issued the permit on 9 April by the Trade Ministry after claiming that NABTA has 100 000 workers but only 20 000 will be working, also allegedly tampered with the permit before selling it for as much as N$200 each.
Then Police Commissioner Joseph Shikongo is quoted as saying, “When we received the complaint, I contacted officials at the line ministry. We scrutinised the permit he issued and realised that it was tampered with. He applied online and indicated that there are 100 000 workers but that only 20 000 will be working during the lockdown.
“He then went on radio inviting drivers to get the permit from him. Registrations were conducted and members were sent messages informing them to collect their permits. He charged them between N$100 and N$200, depending on the car they owned.
“The permits he issued were tampered with and amended. He added about six additional boxes noting the driver’s particulars, ID number, vehicle license, capacity of vehicle, town and email address of the driver. None of those details appear on the original document of the ministry.”
Nakathingo said the idea behind the selling of the copies of essential service provider permits was to generate income for the union as per the constitutional dictates of their legal documents, article 3.11.
He said his intention was to represent the drivers before the trade ministry since most are not recognized as businesses so that they would be able to operate as essential service providers during the thickness of the lockdown.
“Through that certificate we had to establish the area where we had to complete the details for the driver, vehicle. We informed the ministry of trade to provide guidance to us wherever necessary throughout the process.
‘The unfortunate part nothing came from the ministry. There were those who were against this good thing. The issue surrounding the certificate, whether it was real or fake, the certificate was real. There is no fake certificate that was issued, but only some amendments or insertions that were done and that was done in collaboration with the ministry. I was not awarded the opportunity to explain what transpired although they have my contact numbers and all my details.
“Those who got involved and made it an issue of forgery, fraud and whatsoever, they took it that way. But I went to jail. I came out on bail and I have been patiently waiting so that they can put everything clearly before the court,” he said.
Documents seen by The Villager shows that the court threw out the case because the docket was not present while no witness showed up to testify in the matter.
In the meantime, Nakathingo maintains that he has no idea who within the ministry reported him to the police.