Scratch-a-Million Card Account Freeze Lifted

Werner Menges

8 June 2011

A court order which froze the bank account of the close corporation that ran the Scratch-a-Million scratch card competition in Namibia since late 2009 was rescinded on Friday last week.

The bank account of Scratch-a-Million Enterprise CC was frozen through a provisional restraint order that was issued in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act on December 22 2009. In a judgement given in the High Court on September 10 last year, Judge Marlene Tommasi confirmed the provisional court order against the close corporation and its member, Freddy Nalisa Situmbeko.

At the request of Prosecutor General Martha Imalwa, that order was lifted on Friday. This was after Situmbeko had agreed that the money that had been in the close corporation’s account could remain under a preservation order as suspected proceeds of crime.

An amount of about N$385 000 was in the account when the restraint order was issued.

Situmbeko was initially also charged with three counts of fraud in November 2009. On February 28 this year, though, the criminal case against Situmbeko was struck from the court roll in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court because the State’s investigation of the matter had still not been finalised.

In an affidavit filed with the High Court in the case in which she asked for the restraint order to be rescinded, the Prosecutor General attributed the delay in finalising the investigation of the criminal case to the fact that some of the evidence has to be obtained in the United States of America, and that a formal request for assistance has to be made to the US.

Because the delay in the criminal case “will cause undue hardship” to Situmbeko, she has applied to the High Court to have a preservation order issued in respect of the money that was in the Scratch-a-Million account, Imalwa said in the affidavit.

The preservation order “will have the effect that the proceeds of crime that is under restraint will still be safeguarded pending a forfeiture application but without the effect of the restraint order over (Situmbeko),” Imalwa stated.

She acknowledged that the restraint order deprived Situmbeko of providing for his living expenses, as he was in effect restricted from operating his otherwise legitimate business while the order remained in force.

When she first asked the court for the restraint order over Scratch-a-Million Enterprise’s bank account, Imalwa alleged numerous foreign bank cards had been used to transfer funds into the close corporation’s account. The card holders, however, declared that their cards were used without their authorisation and consent.

The court was informed that 52 such card transactions had taken place between October 17 and November 7 2009. In these transactions, a total of N$736 109 had been transferred from foreign card holders’ accounts into the close corporation’s account through a point of sale terminal that Scratch-a-Million had been issued with. Of this total amount, at least N$544 000 was alleged to have been the result of fraudulent transactions, the court was told.

In an answer to the allegations made by the Prosecutor General, Situmbeko claimed he was running a legitimate business. He added that he was not required by law to obtain authorisation from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to run a lottery, as the Lottery Act was not yet in force – a point on which the Prosecutor General conceded he was correct.

Situmbeko further claimed he had no knowledge that foreign bank cards, or cloned cards, had been used to buy Scratch-a-Million competition cards.

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