Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The High Court has found that four former Northern Electricity Distributor (Nored) employees defrauded the company of over N$2.6 million between 2013 and 2015. The court ruled they abused their positions of trust to carry out the scheme.
Judge Eileen Rakow delivered the judgement last week, finding that the employees exploited Nored’s electricity top-up system.
The court found that the quartet loaded electricity credits without receiving payments, deleted legitimate receipts, and collected cash from vendors without handing it over to the company.
Nored told the court that the accused manipulated vendor accounts by entering credits without payment, removing receipts to hide transactions, and personally collecting money that was never deposited.
“All the transactions involving the picking up of money and the subsequent loading of electricity and the generating of a receipt that is backdated or deleted had at least two persons operating, except where the first defendant picked up the money herself,” Rakow stated.
The court found that the accused used the Evolution ERP system and vendor credit processes for personal gain.
The four former employees are Ndahambelela Nelumbu, Josephat Negumbo, Sieglinde Diriardi, and Cecilia Johannes.
Nelumbu, a former debtors’ accountant, played a central role in the scheme. She was linked to multiple deleted receipts and unauthorised credit entries.
“She and her co-defendants worked together. It was proved that the first, second and fourth defendants jointly and severally misappropriated an amount of N$1,027,566.56,” the judgement read.
The court found that Nelumbu collaborated with Diriardi, a cashier in Rundu, to delete receipts after vendors had paid.
This made it appear as though payments had not been made, and the cash went unaccounted for. Nelumbu also worked with Johannes to collect cash from vendors, which they later failed to record in the system.
Negumbo, who worked as a revenue controller, created a fake N$40,000 receipt with no evidence of payment.
The court accepted evidence that he issued credits to vendors without confirming payment.
Judge Rakow noted that while the criminal law doctrine of common purpose was not applied, the employees acted together in a manner that showed shared intent to defraud the company.
Nelumbu was ordered to repay N$853,920.40.
The judgement followed a forensic investigation launched in August 2015 after the suspicious N$40,000 transaction triggered an internal audit.
The audit linked deleted and backdated receipts to the accused employees’ system credentials.
Testimony showed that vendors, who were supposed to pay Nored directly, instead handed cash to employees who failed to deposit it or report it.
The court rejected the employees’ defence that shared passwords, poor internal systems, and mismanagement were to blame.
It ruled that their actions violated company policy and resulted in serious financial losses.
All four were ordered to repay varying amounts to Nored and cover its legal costs.
