Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The High Court in Windhoek has set aside two criminal convictions in an old fraud case, saying they were wrongly added on top of other similar charges.
At the same time, the court also rejected the appeal attempt because it was filed more than seven years late.
The judgement was delivered on 1 August 2025 by judges Dinah Usiku and Herman Christiaan.
Fransisca Rongipo Petrus was convicted in 2015 in the Keetmanshoop Regional Court on four charges: fraud, forgery, uttering a forged instrument, and theft by false pretences.
The case stemmed from an incident in August 2009 in which Petrus fraudulently collected N$23 000 from the ministry of gender equality and child welfare after submitting false receipts for training services she did not provide.
According to the evidence presented during the trial, Petrus had been contracted to provide catering services for a training programme but submitted false invoices, duplicated amounts, and misrepresented service delivery to the ministry.
The court sentenced her in 2015 to a fine of N$4 000 or one year in prison for each of the four charges, with the sentences running concurrently.
In 2022, Petrus filed an appeal seeking to overturn the convictions.
However, the High Court discovered that Petrus filed the appeal years after the deadline. The judges ruled that she failed to provide a reasonable explanation for the delay.
“The appellant launched this appeal more than seven years after her conviction and sentence were passed. She has not provided adequate reasons for the delay,” Usiku and Christiaan said in their ruling.
Petrus cited personal, logistical, and financial challenges, including health issues and medical expenses, as reasons for the delay. She also reported a prior failed appeal attempt in March 2019 due to a defective notice of appeal.
Although the court dismissed the appeal due to lateness, it proceeded to review the record and found that two of the four convictions, forgery and uttering, were irregular.
According to the judgement, the same conduct that gave rise to the fraud charge was used to support the forgery and uttering charges, resulting in duplication.
“The trial court erred in convicting the appellant on both the main and alternative counts based on the same facts. The convictions on counts two and three amount to a duplication of charges,” the judgement read.
The court struck down the convictions for forgery and uttering and confirmed only the fraud and theft convictions. The sentence remains unchanged.
The fraud was initially reported in 2009, and after investigations by the Anti-Corruption Commission, Petrus was arrested and charged. She made multiple appearances at the Keetmanshoop Regional Court prior to her conviction in 2015.
This is not the first time the case has come before the High Court. In 2023, Petrus also approached the High Court to request condonation for late filing, which was dismissed for lack of merit.
The High Court judgement noted that while the appeal had no merit in terms of timing, it had to act to correct the duplication of charges to ensure a lawful outcome.
