WINDHOEK – The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Hage Geingob, has dismissed reports that he pocketed N$2.5 million from the 2007 sale of UraMin’s Trekkopje uranium project to French company Areva, as alleged by Swiss private firm ALP.

According to a report tittled Pomerol 4, compiled by ALP to determine whether anybody profited personally from the US$2.5 billion transaction, Geingob and businessman Haddis Tilahun were cited.

Geingob confirmed that during his time as a Swapo backbencher in the National Assembly, he, through his company HG Consultancy, worked as a consultant to Canadian firm UraMin in 2006 and 2007.

Without revealing figures, Geingob said he was “paid for services delivered” but, he emphatically stated, this was not in connection with Areva’s acquisition of UraMin.
“I was not involved in the sale of UraMin’s Trekkopje to Areva, at all. I only read about this transaction in the newspapers,” said Geingob.

“However, I was a consultant to UraMin in 2006 and 2007, and the consultancy only dealt with UraMin obtaining a mining licence,” Geingob, who also doubles as Swapo vice-president, told New Era. Geingob stressed that his consultancy work with UraMin came before President Hifikepunye Pohamba appointed him to the trade and industry portfolio in 2008.

“The consultancy through my company known as HG Consultancy, took place while I was a Parliamentary backbencher and not a Minister and I repeat, not a Minister.”
He added: “I declared my interest in HG Consultancy to Parliament.”

The Swiss company’s report, cited in the latest edition of the Africa Mining Intelligence magazine, alleged that Geingob “pocketed $300 000 (N$2.5 million) for facilitating the sale of UraMin to Areva.”

Geingob, ALP further alleges, worked “at the behest of Matthews Phosa”, currently the treasurer general of South Africa’s ruling Party, ANC.

Phosa, a renowned businessman in South Africa, has himself served as a business consultant for various local and international businesses since 1999.

Asked about his alleged tied to Phosa, Geingob confirmed knowing him but said said he had not spoken to the ANC senior member in 15 years.

“I saw him from a distance at the Pan African Parliament around 2006, accompanying President Nelson Mandela, and we only waved at each other,” said Geingob.

“The last time I saw him, also from a distance, was at Polokwane, at the Congress of the ANC, where he was seated on the podium. We even didn’t shake hands.”

The ALP report claims Geingob was a “strong supporter of giving the Trekkopje project the status of an Export Processing Zone (EPZ), making it exempt from taxes, even before the pilot stage was completed.”

Responding to this, Geingob said: “The decision to grant EPZ status to Areva was not taken by one person. Instead, a collective and elaborative decision-making process was involved in taking the decision to grant EPZ status to Areva.”

He said the ministries of Trade, Finance and Mining were represented in talks to grant Areva the EPZ status.

The report suggested that Tilahun played a critical role of negotiator in the Areva purchase of UraMin. It further says talks of Geingob’s payment had ruffled feathers in government, especially with “Prime Minister Nahas Angula who protested over the fact that the transaction had been made into an offshore account in the british Virgin Islands and not in Namibia.”

In apparent anger, Geingob wagged a finger at unnamed individuals whom he said were determined to destroy his political career by cooking up allegations about him.

“I see and regard these allegations as clandestine efforts aimed at character assassination, because I was told that this year, 2012, certain people, whom I am aware of, are hell-bent at framing me in order to destroy my political career,” he said.

Geingob is tipped as one of the leading favourites to succeed President Pohamba as Namibian President, a possibility whose real test is this year’s elective congress of the ruling Swapo Party.