A WELDED razor wire mesh was several years ago erected for a distance of up to ten kilometres to the west and to the east of the Oshikango border post to prevent the illegal crossing of the Namibia-Angola border.

An Informanté investigation has found that the fence is not serving its intended purpose.

Instead, it is used to enrich a number of Angolan police officers and their close collaborators in what appears to be a well-organized scheme, set up long before the border was closed in 2020 due to the global Covid pandemic.

The border was opened recently, but only a few people are using the gazetted point of entry.

This is apparently due to the Angolan authorities’ requirement that anyone entering the country is fully vaccinated and also presents a recent negative Covid test certificate.

Border residents, on both sides of the fence, continue using the illegal entry points, facilitated by Angolan police officers who demand money on the spot.

The fence was cut at a number of places and those gaps are now used to cross the border illegally. However, those gaps are owned and manned by Angolan youngsters. They stop those gaps with thorn branches and only remove them to allow passage after their demand for “gasosa” (cool drink) is met.

There is always an Angolan police officer standing a stone’s throw away, but they look the other way pretending to see nothing.

The elderly are normally allowed to cross “free of charge”, but others are requested to “contribute” from as little as N$10 to as high an amount as N$1 000, depending on the baggage one is carrying.

On the Namibian side of the border, there are occasional police patrols, concentrating mostly on confiscating smuggled items such as fuel, cigarettes and liquor.

What happens to confiscated items?

“When fuel and other items are confiscated they are handed over to the Customs,” said a police officer while transporting a number of confiscated fuel containers to the customs warehouse at Oshikango.

However, some residents have expressed doubts.

“Sometimes, goods such as used clothes, whiskey sachets and cigarettes are confiscated by the police and nothing is recorded. The owner is simply ordered to go. One wonders what really happens to those goods,” said Julia Kashikola, a resident of Oshikango’s Oshipwatapwata location.

This was echoed by Augusto Jose Indeimo, an Angolan national currently residing at Oshikango, who said that he used to sell fuel on the Namibian side of the border and was one day last year apprehended by Namibian police. The fuel was confiscated and he was “deported” to Angola. He alleges that nothing was written down, not even his name.

Indeimo, who now sells recharge vouchers and sausages, asked: ‘how sure can we be that these officers are not taking our goods for themselves?”

Newsdesk Email: news@informante.web.na