Defence Minister Rear Admiral (retired) Peter Vilho has refuted allegations of widespread corruption at his ministry and subsidiary company, August 26 Holding Company. He said audited financial statements of August 26 and its subsidiaries will not be opened for scrutiny as doing so would compromise national security. Vilho said this in an interview with NAMPA late Wednesday, in response to allegations of corruption, nepotism and mismanagement at the defence ministry and its business arm August 26. “Theft is just theft. Whether you are in a security company [August 26] or you are in a private company or socio-economic company, it doesn’t matter. If theft is taking place, culprits will be dealt with,” he said. He also dismissed claims by the public that August 26 and its 11 subsidiaries were not being audited. He said the audited financial statements are not for public consumption. “We use those audit reports for our own internal controls so that we make sure that money is accounted for.” Vilho maintained: “What they want is to have access to those reports. But we can’t give them those reports because they not only speak to the amounts of monies used, but they also speak of what the money was used for and that’s what we’re saying is confidential.” Asked if this means everything pertaining to August 26 is off-limits, he replied using an example. He said politicians or the public may want to know how much ammunition the Namibian Defence Force’s Seventh Brigade has or how much is spent on the ammunition factory. It might not occur to civilians how dangerous it is to reveal such information, Vilho said. “All those things are interrelated because people in the military world can make an analysis from that information, they can then understand what your capacity to produce ammunition is, how much you produce a day and so on. This is the tricky part that people normally don’t understand,” he said. In the opposing corner, Ombudsman John Walters has recommended to the National Assembly and Cabinet that August 26 lays bare its financial statements for public scrutiny. It remains to be seen whether they will heed this call. Walters said Namibians deserve to know how their money has been spent by the parastatal since 14 August 1998. Over the years, opposition politicians have called on August 26 to account for public and report to parliament, just like other state-owned companies. They argue that national security has been used as a guise concealing illicit activities taking place at the company. Other allegations are also rife in the defence circles that army generals have been using August 26 as their piggy bank, placing their proxies in critical positions to satisfy their insatiable lust for state contracts. -NAMPA