The Corruption Tracker is produced 11 times a year by insight Namibia with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation. This is the first edition of Corruption Tracker for 2008. Each month Corruption Tracker is emailed as an electronic bulletin to a range of institutions, organisations and individuals. If you have any comments that could help Insight to improve Corruption Tracker, please email your thoughts to Tileni Mongudhi at tileni@insight.com.na.

Windhoekers are used to seeing government vehicles in strange places – dropping children at school, outside shebeens, and even occupying the disabled parking spot outside Game. The bad news is that beyond Windhoek, the situation is even worse.

Government Garage officials say that the abuse of vehicles is rife in rural towns and settlements where there is little monitoring and regulations are routinely ignored. “In those places you find people collecting alcohol for their shebeens with the GRN car,” says one Government Garage official.

In theory, the use of government vehicles should be controlled by the transport officers within each ministry. When a government employee has to use a car they should first log in with the transport officer of their ministry. The driver must indicate where they are going and the kilometres on the clock so that when the vehicle is returned the transport officer can calculate whether the car travelled the intended distance or if the driver made unscheduled journeys.

However, virtually no one is ever called to account if they use the vehicles for trips that were not approved. In most cases those abusing state vehicles are only brought to book when accidents happen and it is discovered they were not complying with their Trip Authority or that they don’t have one. Sometimes official are allowed to take vehicles overnight, but in general the car should be parked after working hours and not be seen on the road.

The use of government vehicles is limited to official purposes only. The only exception is for political office bearers who have no limitations on the use of their cars providing they do not cause embarrassment to the government. Political office bearers are the only ones allowed to use their cars for everyday tasks like shopping and transporting children to school.

Members of the public service’s management, from the Deputy Director to the Permanent Secretary, are not allowed to use government vehicles since they are given car allowances and fuel running costs as part of their remuneration packages.

With impunity

Within a matter of days Corruption Tracker (CT) spotted several apparent cases of misuse. On Tuesday February 19, CT saw a blue Police Toyota Corolla (Pol 5239), GRN 80176 belonging to the Ministry of Local Government, and GRN 8548 belonging to the Ministry of Defence all dropping children at Windhoek schools. That same afternoon GR 7751, belonging to the Ministry of Health, and GRN 8542, belonging to the Ministry of Defence, were seen picking up children from schools.

On Friday February 22, GRN 27214 belonging to the Ministry of Health was spotted parked along the notorious Eveline Street in Katutura at 20h00 hours. A police truck was parked along Ongava street in Okuryangava (Pol 5276) at 20h33 and Pol 5234 (not a patrol car) was seen on Ombakata street in Okuryangava at 20h24. All attempts to trace whether these vehicles were being used illegally or not fell flat as officials in the government and police refused to cooperate.

No system

According to Julius Ngweda, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication, there are no guidelines on how to deal with the abuse of government vehicles. He told Corruption Tracker that the Ministry was currently in the process of drafting a policy in that regard. So far offenders have been dealt with through the Public Service Act.Currently, there is no system for dealing with government vehicle abuse in Namibia.

Even if a member of the public, on seeing a vehicle being abused, alerts the authorities, there is no guarantee that the complaint will be followed up. It seems no agency is willing to take a strong lead. The Anti-Corruption Commission does not see dealing with such cases as a priority, although abuse of official vehicles is regarded as a crime under the Anti-Corruption Act.

No one in the ministries is willing to take concerted action, while the police appear to be one of the main offenders. The Government Garage is at least making an attempt to coordinate efforts by holding monthly meetings with all ministries’ transport officers and the police to try and control the abuse.

A Government Garage official told CT that government should look at introducing technology, which would allow government to track the whereabouts of vehicles in real time.

One example

At 17h00 on Saturday February 23, Corruption Tracker noticed a government car full of people at the Goreangab dam recreational area. The Government Garage agreed to find out if the vehicle was there with permission. It was found that the white Toyota Avensis (GRN 1200) was assigned to transport delegates attending the National Heritage Conference organised by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The conference ended on Friday February 22, but the Trip Authority was made out until Sunday February 24. The vehicle was supposed to be driving delegates between Safari Hotel and Hosea Kutako Airport. When the GG asked the driver how the car came to be at Goreangab Dam, he claimed that some delegates had asked to be given a tour of Windhoek.

This explanation was apparently accepted, even though it was not the official reason for using the vehicle. The question remains as to whether this was an appropriate use of government resources.