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NTB WINS KORA CASE…//NAOBEB SAYS NO PLAN YET TO RECOVER MONEY 

By: Justicia Shipena 

Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) chief executive officer Digu //Naobeb says that they are now planning on how to recover the misappropriated money from Kora Awards. 

This comes as Judge Herman Oosthuizen ordered Mundial Telecom Sarl, the company that owns the Kora Africa Music awards and the founder Ernest Adjovi to repay N$23.5 million.

The Benin-born Adjovi was paid the money to host the Kora Music Awards in Windhoek in Namibia in 2016 but never did.

Oosthuizen ordered Mundial Telecom Sarl to pay interest at a rate of 20% per annum backdated from 1 July 2016. 

//Naobeb said they need to engage law enforcement agencies and others to see how to recover the money.

“The next step is to look at how we recover the money because the judge did not give any rulings as to the method and the manner in how this money should be recovered,” he said. 

He added that for the money to be recovered, they need to look at international legal instruments that are at their disposal. 

“The defendant who has been ordered to pay back the money is leaving Ivory Coast or somewhere in Benin. So we need to trace the person and use international means to recover the money.”

He further said it is difficult to tell whether Mundial Telecom Sarl will come forth and pay the monies. 

“Although we wanted Adjovi to provide us with banking information to see whether they have funds in their bank accounts, all we could be determined at that time was that this company is registered in Ivory Coast as a juridical person,” he stated.

//Naobeb told The Villager that the company exists and operates. 

“But we are not sure yet whether they have financial means to be able to refund us, and we can only determine that as the process is embarked upon.” 

He stated they would be cost included in tracking down the company and ensuring it pays its due. 

“Depending on the means and the methodology that we will be following, there will be cost. If we do it ourselves as the NTB, we surely have to incur the cost, but if we are going through international legal routes, the cost will be involved. So all this has been studied and carefully considered,” he expressed. 

Speaking to The Villager on Thursday, environment and tourism minister Pohamba Shifeta said he expected the ruling to be in NTB’s favour. 

“It is not something that we did not expect because it was clear that there was a violation of the agreement,” he said. 

Shifeta added that Mundial Telecom Sarl knows it was supposed to pay back the money immediately after the awards activities could not go ahead. 

“In terms of recovery money, we will see when we get here. We haven’t yet sat down and discussed how we would go about it,” he said. 

Shifeta added that the Kora case acts as a caution for the future. 

“That such agreement being entered into they should be some proper jacks so that we don’t get into the same mistake.” 

International relations and political analyst Marius Kudumo said he does not think it is a matter of international relations. 

“This is a company which agreed to provide services, but I think they should be international instruments.”

Kudumo stated that Namibia needs to learn lessons when dealing with cases like Kora. 

“When drafting an agreement with international bodies, we have to do our homework and ensure that the issues of recovering the money in case they do not honour the agreement are attended to,” he said. 

He further said Namibians tend to sign agreements without scrutinising enough re-cost coverage. 

 

Justicia Shipena

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