Katiti Says He Feels ‘Like an Outcast’

Werner Menges

3 June 2011

FORMER Walvis Bay Municipality Chief Executive Officer Augustinus Katiti related in the High Court in Windhoek on Wednesday that newspaper articles about him which were published near the end of 2007 left him shocked, hurt, and feeling like people viewed him as being a criminal.

Katiti gave this testimony in a trial over a defamation claim in which he is suing The Namibian, its editor, Gwen Lister, Swakopmund-based journalist Adam Hartman, and estate agent Regina Kotchanova for N$300 000.

Katiti first made headlines earlier in 2007 when the Walvis Bay Municipality agreed to pay him close to N$2,8 million upon his resignation as CEO of the harbour town. Katiti resigned about three years before his five-year term of office was to run out. The Walvis Bay Residents Association later sued him and the Walvis Bay Municipality in the High Court in a bid to challenge the pay-out, but the case was finally withdrawn in 2009.

Katiti’s defamation claim flows from an article published under the headline “Katiti charged for theft” in the December 21 2007 edition of The Namibian.

In the article, written by Hartman, Kotchanova was quoted as having said that a charge of theft had been laid against Katiti with the Police in Windhoek after he had failed to pay a final instalment in a transaction in which he bought a real estate agency franchise from Kotchanova’s husband, and after he had allegedly sold furniture that belonged to the estate agency.

The bulk of the article was taken up by a statement in which Katiti’s lawyer, Richard Metcalfe, dismissed Kotchanova’s allegations on Katiti’s behalf.

The article was a follow-up story on a report that had been published in another newspaper, Republikein, two days earlier. In the Republikein article, only Kotchanova’s allegations were reported without comment from Katiti or his lawyer.

Katiti told Acting Judge Petrus Unengu he was shocked when he saw the Republikein article. After the Afrikaans daily published a follow-up article in which only his lawyer’s statement was reported, he however felt that a more balanced story had been published, he said.

He did not feel that way about The Namibian’s article, which was published on the same day, Katiti indicated.

He was especially unhappy with the headline and first paragraph of the article, Katiti said.

“I have never been charged for theft,” he told the judge.

A theft case was opened with the Police, though, he confirmed. Nothing came of that, after the Prosecutor General decided not to prosecute him in connection with that case.

“I was very shocked and I panicked,” Katiti described his reaction to the report in The Namibian.

He said he was shocked because the headline made him think that he had been charged with theft and that criminal action was being taken against him.

“It suggests I had stolen, I am a thief, and hence I am a criminal,” Katiti claimed. “It suggests I’m not trustworthy. My Lord, for somebody who had only resigned in April of that year, who was trying to enter the cut-throat business world, a heading like that would certainly not attract too many business associates.”

He added that in his opinion a statement that he had been charged with theft would not have opened any doors for possible appointment to senior executive positions on the same level as the job from which he had resigned at the Walvis Bay Municipality.

The article made him feel as if people were judging him as being a criminal, as someone who had stolen things that did not belong to himself, and as someone who was not honest or trustworthy.

“You feel like an outcast,” he said.

Katiti also told the court he never owed any money to Kotchanova’s husband, Nikolai Kotchanov, and never faced legal action in connection with the estate agency sale. He however quickly had to concede that in fact a company of which he has been the sole shareholder since 2009, Beauhomes Real Estate, was indeed sued by Kotchanov. That case was settled in October last year with his company agreeing to pay N$500 000 to Kotchanov.

Katiti further claimed that Hartman had been doing “too much selective reporting on matters relating to myself”, which he charged primarily portrayed him in a negative manner.

He said: “With this much negative reporting, how could I strike deals or get a job, on a senior level, here in Namibia or abroad?”

Katiti’s counsel, Harald Geier, wrapped up leading his evidence on Wednesday afternoon. Andrew Corbett, representing The Namibian, Lister and Hartman, is set to start with his cross-examination of Katiti today.

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