Dear Sir
I read in South African newspapers that there are plans afoot to disband the famous SA anti-fraud police unit, the Scorpions, and transfer the members to regular units. If this turns out to be fact, then we face a costly problem. I was told that the Scorpions are the investigating unit in an effort to locate the N$100 million investment funds that went missing from the Namibia Development Corporation. I also recently heard that they have made some breakthrough in locating the funds and were working on the legal machinations to repatriate the funds to Namibia and to start legal proceedings against the guilty parties in South Africa.

The Scorpions have established a sound reputation for investigating major fraud cases and effectively bringing the culprits to justice. They have a success rate of over 80%. From what I have read it looks as if they are selective in picking their cases but once they have decided to accept a mandate to investigate a particular case, they go all the way, and do not stop before the fraudsters are behind bars.
If the unit is disbanded, what will happen to the NDC investigation? Certainly in Namibia we do not have a similar police unit with equal reach and capacity. Is this another case of eventually having to write off the N$100 million and forgot that is was some of our own people who authorised this criminal deal. Have the local criminals been charged? Are they behind bars? I doubt it.
It may be a good area of investigation for the Economist to bring us up to date on the progress made with locating the missing funds, and prosecuting those Namibians who had their hands in the pie.
I trust you will help that this issue stays alive.
N$100 million can afford each Namibian pensioner more or less another N$100 per month for another year. That would make a real difference to the lives of the old people who are also often the people who need an extra one hundred dollars most.
Please help by publishing this plea in your esteemed paper. We are sick and tired of criminals stealing our country's resources and then slowly fading off the horizon. We want these people removed from society.
Yours in hope
Jonathan Abednego
Windhoek
(letter shortened - Ed.)