Staff Reporter
AN INTERNAL auditor for the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF), Josef Taaya Vilho, testified today in a fraud case involving two employees of the pension fund, Martin Eugen Smith and Vabiola Aoses, who are annuity administrators accused of stealing about N$18 million from the fund.
In his testimony, Vilho said that he had reviewed the GIPF systems, which showed that Aoses was the last person to amend documents on the Horizon system. This system is used to upload relevant documents of beneficiaries, such as bank changes, school letters, certificates of existence, and medical aid records. He added that the system only saves a record when someone amends a document, not when someone logs onto it.
“On 11 August 2022, the Internal Audit Department received a request from the office of the CEO. They asked us to look into an inquiry received from GIPF’s Otjiwarongo Regional Office regarding a child annuitant named Jessica R. Gowases, who claimed that she did not receive her children’s pension for the 2019 school calendar year. The annuitant inquired about her monthly benefit, which had stopped. They requested us to look into the issue and whether there were any other similar cases. We thus investigated and back-dated our investigations to around March 2020, when GIPF disabled biometric operations due to Covid-19,” Vilho said.
He added that during the investigation, they discovered other similar cases where forged documents, such as school letters, full birth certificates, and bank confirmation letters, had been used to process payment of backdated annuities.
“The Annuity Division is responsible for processing annuity payments, which is why our investigation focused on that division. We conducted a search for any suspicious transactions that were processed, and our investigation revealed numerous suspicious transactions. We further looked into the bank accounts into which the payments from these suspicious transactions were made, as well as how often such accounts received payments from the Fund. We discovered that Ms. Gowases’ payments were indeed made and up-to-date, but surprisingly, they were paid into a different account which did not belong to her. We further discovered that the proof of study and certificate of existence enabling such payments were fictitious, confirmed by Ms. Gowases herself, as she had never attended school in Windhoek, as per the proof of study attached to her claim and processed in the system,” Vilho said.
Further, the internal auditor said that Gowases received a payment purportedly made by the Fund amounting to N$21,027.33 from a questionable source on 15 July 2022. The amount was paid into Ms. Gowases’ Nedbank account.
“The amount she received did not correspond with the amount initially communicated to her by the Fund. The reference on her bank statement was indicated as ‘Vabiola Aoseb Ref GIPF Fund E41.’ This raised immediate concern because when the Fund makes payments to members, the payment reference reads ‘GIPF FUND’ with a unique number, e.g., ‘GIPF FUND’ followed by the EFT number. The reference used when the Fund makes payments to annuitants does not include staff members’ names,” Vilho said.
He added that in their search for account numbers frequently used for payments from suspicious transactions, they also attempted to link such accounts to GIPF employees who processed the payments and amended the annuitants’ banking details on the system. The system clearly indicates the details of the last person who modified the particulars of the annuitants.
“The names of Mrs. Vabiola Aoses and Mr. Martin Eugen Smith appeared on the system as the ones who amended the particulars of the annuitants whose annuities were fraudulently paid into bank accounts purportedly belonging to the annuitants. During our investigation, we discovered numerous forged documents on Mr. Martin Eugen Smith’s laptop. We also found that the two employees were communicating via email, indicating the reference numbers of the annuitants they were targeting and processing payments to fictitious bank accounts, which had already been frequently used and did not belong to the annuitants. I can confidently say that the money used by Mr. Martin Eugen Smith to purchase Erf 757, Kleine Kuppe (Extension 1) in the Municipality of Windhoek, and Erf 370, Matutura (Extension 1) in the Municipality of Swakopmund, is money that belongs to the Fund, fraudulently paid to those accounts,” Vilho said.
