Secretary to Cabinet George Simataa has broken his silence on his role in the now defunct Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Bank in his newly released memoir titled ''Timeless: My Career in the Public Service''.

Dr. Simataa served as the non-executive Chairperson of the SME Bank until 2017, a tenure he describes as having ''brought unbearable hardship in my life''.

More than N$300 million disappeared from the SME Bank due to unsound investments, which later led to its closure by the Bank of Namibia.

Dr. Simataa states that the investments of about N$230 million in South Africa-based Mamepe Capital Propriety Limited and VBS Mutual Bank were made before he was appointed Chairperson.

He says Zimbabwe's Metropolitan Bank, as the technical partner, made all the investment decisions empowered by the Management Agreement.

This meant that the technical partner needed no approval from the Board of Directors on many business aspects, as they were disempowered.

Dr. Simataa says he only became aware of the multi-million dollar investments in October 2016 when the Bank of Namibia raised concerns about the SME Bank's inadequate cash flow management, absence of contingency funding to address liquidity shortfalls and investments made above the Chief Executive Officer's limit.

Dr. Simataa describes the entire SME Bank saga as unfortunate, where hundreds of Namibians lost their jobs and others lost money in investments.

He, however, set the record straight, saying he never corruptly received funds or that he stole money from the entity.

''I also know that I have never sat in a meeting that made a bad investment decision of the SME Bank money, as it was alleged by many. The truth of the matter is that the Board of Directors of the SME Bank, to which I was the Chairperson, never made any investment decisions during our term of office, yet some monies were reported to have been invested somewhere''.

The SME Bank was established by the Namibia Financing Trust Limited in 2012 with a 65% shareholding and  Zimbabwe's World Eagle Properties with 35% equity.

Metropolitan Bank of Zimbabwe later acquired 30%, leaving World Eagle Properties with only 5%.