Africa-Press – Namibia. SWAPO secretary general Sophia Shaningwa has refused to comment on questions by Independent Patriots for Change president Panduleni Itula about how four tailor-made leather jackets in Swapo party colours were produced.
Itula asked the question over the weekend at Swakopmund, following claims made over the past two weeks during a bail hearing of six of the men charged in the so-called Fishrot case.
Itula asked Shaningwa to explain how leather jackets in Swapo colours seen worn by the party’s top leaders were procured, and if they were gifts, who acquired them and from whom.
Itula also wanted to know how Swapo managed to obtain fishing quotas – a claim made during the bail hearing in the High Court over the past two weeks.
He said: “They have to answer the Namibian people because there is no provision in the Fisheries Act to allocate fish quotas to political parties, otherwise we should now go and get ours. You don’t have to apply, by the way.”
Contacted for comment, Shaningwa terminated the phone call, made by The Namibian. The party’s executive director, Austin Samumpwa, referred The Namibian back to Shaningwa.
Swapo has maintained that it did not receive money connected to the Fishrot scandal, but has not come out to refute that it has received fishing quotas.
During his bail hearing, former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia (Fishcor) chief executive Mike Nghipunya claimed the party received more than N$81 million in proceeds from fishing quotas.
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