Allow me to express my views concerning our Sobbe Conservancy which has problems.
I am a member of the Sobbe Conservancy and worried on how things are being missed in this Conservancy.
Elephant tusks were discovered during the hunting expedition in June and July 2012 by the professional hunters. After discoveries, elephant tusks(ivories) were taken up for safe keeping.
On 26 July 2012, the hunter sent his wife to transport the ivories to Sobbe Office, as these were received by the manager and two staff members who witnessed the receiving and was kept in the store room.
On 6th August after the end of the meeting which reported the acceptance of those ivories, two member were sent to bring the tusks which were kept in a store room for the management to see and decide on them, only to find out that none of the tusks was found.
In October 2012, some local investigations in the Sobbe was conducted to ask maybe some staff members have seen or knows the whereabouts of the missing items ,but all our members denied having seen them.
However, in the same month a meeting was held to know the way forward on how the critical matter would be handled and the matter was reported to the Ministry of Environment & Tourism, CSD and CBNRM which all mandated Sobbe Conservancy to report the matter to the Namibian Police and a case number was received and Up to now everything is still under Police investigations .
On October 15, 2012 again, money was withdrawn by the treasure & enterprise, in conjunction with transact management allowance & staff salaries.
The Same date, money was handed in to the Conservancy manager by our treasurer at his house, on the same day a report was launched to the Committee saying the money have been stolen at his house without him knowing who took it.Police were contacted to trace these culprits, but all their mobile phones were switched off. Thereafter, police at Katima Mulilo Police Station were fully contacted to apprehend the suspects but all to no avail.
Procedurally they handed over the case to Kongola police station for it to investigate this issue, but nothing has been done on the further investigation of this case .
I would like those individuals; pressure groups and anti-corruption commission who are very serious about investigations to help us recover our missing monies and elephant tusks and to otherwise teach us on how to investigate these kind of matters by ourselves because we want our Conservancy to step forward not backward.
By un- named Concerned Member of the Sobbe Conservancy.