New Fishcor Board Tasked With Restoring Public Confidence in Namibia

Namibia has installed a new board at state-owned Fishcor with orders to rebuild public trust after the Fishrot bribery scandal — while the corruption case itself grinds through yet another year of procedural battles.

Namibia’s government has put the National Fishing Corporation of Namibia, known as Fishcor, under new leadership with a blunt instruction: rebuild trust and fix governance. Agriculture, fisheries, water and land reform minister Inge Zaamwani handed appointment letters to the new Fishcor board on Thursday, 10 September 2026.

A board told to rebuild trust

The seven-member board is chaired by Teofilus Nghitila, with Josefina Nekongo as deputy chairperson. The other members are John Steytler, Edmund Buys, Ndeyapo Ekandjo, Epsom Jossop and Alisa Jacób.

Zaamwani said the board takes over at a moment when the company needs stronger governance, improved financial accountability and renewed public confidence. One of its first priorities is to finalise Fishcor’s integrated strategic business plan, then oversee its implementation and hold management to approved targets.

“Fishcor requires strong governance, accountability and strategic leadership,” Zaamwani said at the handover. “The board has an important responsibility to restore confidence in the corporation and ensure that it operates effectively, transparently and in accordance with its mandate.” She added that Fishcor’s future direction should support the government’s Sixth National Development Plan, The Namibian reported.

The Fishrot scandal that broke public trust

Fishcor stands at the centre of Fishrot, Namibia’s biggest post-independence corruption case. The scandal burst into the open in November 2019, when WikiLeaks began publishing the Fishrot Files — more than 30,000 internal documents from Icelandic fishing giant Samherji — and Al Jazeera aired its “Anatomy of a Bribe” investigation days later.

The material documented how Samherji allegedly paid about US$10 million in bribes and facilitation payments to Namibian officials and politically connected middlemen to secure lucrative fishing quotas, with money moving through companies and accounts in Cyprus and other offshore centres. Samherji has said it cooperated with investigators; its former chief executive stepped down and Icelandic prosecutors brought charges in Iceland.

On the Namibian side, the best-known accused are the so-called Fishrot Six: former fisheries minister Bernhard Esau, former justice minister Sacky Shanghala, former Fishcor chairman James Hatuikulipi, his son-in-law Tamson Hatuikulipi, Ricardo Gustavo and Pius Mwatelulo. Prosecutors link them to schemes involving at least N$150 million (about US$9.2 million) in kickbacks and to state-to-state fishing licence deals with Angola worth up to N$2.5 billion (about US$154 million), at roughly 16.2 Namibia dollars to the US dollar.

A case stuck in procedural battles

Nearly seven years after the first arrests, the criminal trial has still not started in earnest. Ten individuals are charged in the fraud, corruption and racketeering case over the alleged unlawful allocation and use of fishing quotas. In July, acting judge Marilize du Plessis postponed the matter to 19 October 2026 after an appearance by the accused in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility.

The delay is driven by interlocking applications. Shanghala has petitioned the Supreme Court for leave to appeal against Du Plessis’s refusal to step down from the case. A separate civil application — brought by Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, Mwatelulo and Otneel Shuudifonya — asks the High Court to stop their prosecution until a wider set of court orders is decided; it is scheduled to be heard on 15 September, The Namibian reported. Most of the accused have spent years in custody as the procedural fight continues.

Why the new board matters beyond Windhoek

Fishing is one of Namibia’s strategic industries — a top export earner, a major employer in coastal towns such as Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, and a pillar of food security. Fishcor, as the state vehicle in the sector, is supposed to turn national quota rights into public value; Fishrot turned it into a byword for capture instead.

Public anger over the scandal has pressed the government and state-owned enterprises to show visible reform. For investors watching Southern Africa, the new board is a test of whether Namibia can enforce accountability without destabilising a key industry — a governance question that reaches far beyond one company, as explored in Africa: The New Scramble.

What to watch next

The board’s immediate deliverable is the integrated strategic business plan; no public deadline has been announced, but Zaamwani made clear she expects pace. The parallel storyline is the courtroom: the 15 September application hearing and the 19 October case date will show whether the Fishrot prosecution finally moves towards trial.

For now, the new Fishcor board carries the weight of a national institution trying to recover its legitimacy. The measure of success will be whether tighter controls and a credible plan translate into measurable accountability — and whether the courts eventually catch up with the scandal that made the appointment necessary.

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