Africa-Press – Namibia. FISHROT accused Ricardo Gustavo says after years of not being in contact with his childhood friend and co-accused James Hatuikulipi, they met at a bar in Luanda in 2009.
Gustavo was doing work in Angola, while Hatuikulipi was attending a financial conference in Luanda. Gustavo said this as part of his testimony in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, during the hearing of his bail application.
After meeting at the bar, they met frequently, and Hatuikulipi offered him a job at Investec Asset Management, he said. “He asked me whether I was willing to join Investec Management. In fact, he offered me a job to help them develop the Angolan market,” he said.
Gustavo said he does not believe the state has a strong case against him in the Fishrot matter. “This is a trial I have to see through, because I verily believe I have not committed any of the allegations preferred against me,” he said. Gustavo added that the state is treating him as if he is guilty until proven innocent.
The state is alleging that Namgomar Pesca Namibia was set up by Gustavo and some of his co-accused – including Hatuikulipi, who was a colleague of Gustavo at the Namibian office of the company Investec Asset Management, former minister of fisheries and marine resources Bernhard Esau, and former attorney general and minister of justice Sacky Shanghala – as a means to get access to Namibian fishing quotas allocated under a fisheries cooperation agreement between Namibia and Angola.
Gustavo’s boss in the company was João de Barros, the son of the former Angolan minister of fisheries Victoria de Barros Neto. Esau is alleged to have allocated horse mackerel quotas totalling 50 000 tonnes to Namgomar Pesca Namibia from 2014 to 2019.
The company sold those quotas to companies in the Icelandic fishing company group Samherji. The state is alleging that payments for those quotas were channelled to the accused in the Fishrot case.
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