A Malaysia-based businessman accused of forging a TransNamib Holdings letter and impersonating chief executive officer, Desmond van Jaarsveld, is now in pole position to benefit from the parastatal’s N$2.6 billion locomotives project.
While TransNamib confirmed the existence of the forged letter, the company has not opened a criminal case to report the alleged forgery of its official documents.
Instead, the TransNamib CEO met with representatives of the company to discuss business.
The strange case involves Malaysia-based Indian businessman Ponnusamy Kannan and the company he represents, SMH Rail.
Two weeks ago, Kannan attended meetings in Namibia about setting up a locomotive refurbishment and manufacturing facility in Usakos. The Issue has learned that his initial visa application at the Namibian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, had a TransNamib invitation letter dated 7 September 2026 as one of the supporting documents.
The letter invited Kannan to attend meetings from 9 to 12 September at the government rail company’s head office in the heart of Windhoek.
It is alleged that the letter also indicated that the project Kannan was being invited for was part of works minister Veikko Nekundi’s directives. The letter allegedly bears a signature resembling Van Jaarsveld’s.
However, on 8 September Van Jaarsveld wrote to the Namibian High Commission in Malaysia to confirm the invitation of Kannan to attend meetings with TransNamib on 14 and 15 September.
To add another twist to the tale, The Issue has seen a letter dated 11 September also authored by Van Jaarsveld to the same diplomatic mission, in which the parastatal boss distances TransNamib from the initial 7 September letter.
“We can confirm that the letter in question dated 07 September 2026 on a TransNamib letterhead was NOT issued by TransNamib,” read the letter, which, apart from being signed, also bore the CEO’s stamp.
Van Jaarsveld, last week confirmed that the parastatal did invite Kannan despite discovering the existence of an invitation letter that did not come from the parastatal. “TransNamib did subsequently issue a letter to SMH expressing our serious concerns on the allegation of using a letter not issued by TNHL and requesting a formal investigation and report,” he said in an emailed response sent by the TransNamib public relations department.
To further deepen the intrigue, Kannan and SMH have no direct dealings with TransNamib. Their relationship is with the ministry of defence-owned Windhoek Maschinenfabric (WMF).
It would appear that the two are set to build a locomotive refurbishment plant at Usakos. TransNamib has not properly explained why it had to invite SMH to Namibia see separate story.
This has sparked speculation that the invitation was issued at the behest of works minister Veikko Nekundi, a claim his ministry denied. “TransNamib has not received any instructions from the ministry to issue an invitational letter to an SMH representative or delegation to visit Namibia for meetings, neither was he aware of SMH representative’s visit in Namibia,” said ministry spokesperson Nelago Shivute.
Namibia’s High Commissioner to Malaysia Christine Hoebes did not respond to questions sent to her via WhatsApp more than a week ago.
