Namdia 'worries' President

PRESIDENT Hage Geingob is allegedly worried by the manner in which Namib Desert Diamonds (Namdia) has started operating and that state diamonds are being sold for a song.

Namdia is a state-owned company established in August last year to sell diamonds worth about N$2 billion per year, or N$20 billion over the next 10 years. Geingob has been accused of being too quiet on the Namdia saga. However, three senior sources in Geingob's administration told The Namibian recently that the President was not happy with how the diamond company was started. Geingob has since directed public enterprises minister Leon Jooste to investigate the parastatal. The Namibian reported in October last year that Namdia secretly started operating on 18 April 2016 and its board, appointed by mines minister Obeth Kandjoze, was never made public until this newspaper asked him for the names. Board appointments are normally announced by the line ministry or the information ministry, but it was not so in Namdia's case. The names were only made public in October via The Namibian, months after the appointments. According to a minister, who declined to be named, Geingob told Jooste around October last year to investigate Namdia. Jooste, who was unreachable yesterday, conducted his investigation about the setting up of Namdia without informing Kandjoze. An official familiar with the investigation said several ministers were afraid of offending each other, while certain ministers are known to be sensitive, even when dealing with national issues. Legally, Jooste had little power to probe Namdia since the diamond entity was not one of the parastatals under his ministerial supervision via a Cabinet policy which categorised state-owned entities. This, sources said, might change in September this year when the law is changed.