!Gawaxab’s business deals in the spotlight

TILENI MONGUDHI
May 6, 2024

BANK OF Namibia governor Johannes !Gawaxab is facing allegations that he sold businesses and lucrative shareholding in a major insurance company to family and friends, while declaring that he had sold such interests to what he termed “unrelated parties”.

Questions are now being asked about whether !Gawaxab willingly misled the Central Bank, while the legitimacy of the said transactions have also been thrown into question.

To make matters worse, !Gawaxab and one of his former entities were slapped with a N$1 million fine by the Namibian Competition Commission in December last year.

The fine followed a competition commission’s investigation, which found that !Gawaxab failed to follow procedures and seek the commission’s blessings to sell his company, Eos Capital to a friend and business associate, Ismael Gei-Khoibeb.


“All required disclosures in this matter were made to the BoN four years ago when I became governor, and the matter is closed,” !Gawaxab said in an emailed response. 

Related party transaction disclosures are required especially in highly regulated environments such as BoN and are used as a means of tracking and managing potential conflicts of interest.

‘Unrelated Parties’

 

The Issue has it on good authority that !Gawaxab declared to BoN that he sold his companies to ‘unrelated parties’. 

In his declaration, he stated that he sold his members interests in Gamma Investment, the close corporation that owns Eos Capital, to an unrelated party. 

Eos Capital is a financial services private equity firm which manages more than N$1 billion.


Based on documents from the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (Bipa), Gei-Khoibeb took 100% control of Gamma Investment last year. 

In 2020, he took over !Gawaxab’s 55% but has now also acquired the 45% interest belonging to !Gawaxab’s former business partner, Nicole Maske.

The competition commission investigated this transaction and fined !Gawaxab, Gei-Khoibeb and Gamma Investment N$1 million for failing to seek its blessing before finalising the transaction. 


!Gawaxab is quoted in court documents explaining that he was in a hurry to sell the shares because he had to comply with laws governing the Bank of Namibia, which prohibit him from holding interests in such a business. 

He said continued ownership of Gamma Investments while occupying the BoN governor post would have constituted a crime.

!Gawaxab also sold another financial services company, Eljota Investment Managers, to Gei-Khoibeb for N$2 000. He also allegedly told BoN that he sold the company to an unrelated party.


Gei-Khoibeb had not responded to detailed questions about his business relationship with !Gawaxab at the time of publishing.

!Gawaxab further declared that he transferred his Old Mutual shares to an unrelated party, through a stockbroker. 

The Issue understands that the said unrelated party in this case was Anna Maria Kaoseb, believed to be !Gawaxab’s sister in-law. 

The Issue has further learned that this transaction involved 500 563 Old Mutual shares, with a combined value of about N$5.5 million at Monday’s trading price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. 

Kaoseb could not be traced at the time of publishing.

!Gawaxab did not respond to detailed questions and referred questions to Gei-Khoibeb. 

“May I suggest you contact Eljota Investments regarding the Competition Commission matter. I am no longer involved with Eljota Investments as I disposed of my interest four years ago,” he said. 


– This article was produced in partnership with Integrity Namibia, a project of the IPPR

 

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