Zorena Jantze
CALLS by the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters’ (NEFF) vice-president Kalimbo Iipumbu to impeach president Hage Geingob or put him on leave from office ended in chaos after the Speaker of the National Assembly ruled his questions out of order amid numerous rowdy interjections from other Members of Parliament.
Iipumbu’s motion comes after former South African spy Arthur Fraser alleged that Geingob helped South African president Cyril Ramaphosa hunt down thieves who looted between N$60 to N$120 million from his residence.
The money is said to have been laundered by Ramaphosa who kept these huge sums in American dollars hidden in his furniture.
“The President has become a legend of denying anything from the SME bank scandal, the GIPF saga, the Fishrot corruption debacle and the controversial Areva deal. Why should we believe him this time, if he is to deny his involvement here? There are systems Geingob is said to have offered Ramaphosa. This implies that our very own highest office assisted a foreign president to launder money,” Iipumbu said in Parliament.
If the quotes by Fraser are anything to go by, what stops parliament from giving Geingob a vote of no confidence so that he may be impeached, Iipumbu queried.
These questions were interrupted by rowdy objections from other Members of Parliament.
Iipumbu continued with his demands that the President should take leave from his office and asked under which laws Geingob “offered this higher-level assistance to an intelligence operative from a foreign country to come over our borders without being documented and arrest one of our citizens when the Namibian police are there”.
“Should this not be the time our President takes a sabbatical leave from office to allow a full-scale investigation from non-biased authorities?” Iipumbu queried.
He further stated that a total of N$6 million was allegedly transferred to a Namibian account and queried why the Namibian police’s Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga, the ACC or the FIC have not initiated their own investigations to trace these funds and their origins.
Speaker of the National Assembly Prof Peter Katjavivi however ruled Iipumbu’s question out of order under rule number 88/B.
“I don’t think we should allow this conversation. We can hardly hear each other due to the level of noise. How would you characterize that? I think it is enough,” Katjavivi said.
President of the EFF in South Africa Julius Malema has also aired his comments on the matter stating that if President Geingob is found to be involved in Ramaphosa’s ‘money-laundering crime’, a criminal case should be opened against him and that they would use their existing laws to ensure his arrest.
