The Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism has confirmed it will involve the country’s police service NamPol in carrying out ongoing gambling and casino licence inspections.
The partnership comes as the MET experiences “challenges” in inspecting properties, part of an initiative to collect a national database of licensed and unlicensed businesses.
“Some of the challenges we have on record are compliance or willingness of owners to cooperate with the inspectors to do inspections,” said ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda. “There are some that are refusing inspectors to enter their premises.”
“However, we will be engaging NamPol to come on board so that they can accompany the inspectors. That way it will also be easy for the operators to cooperate because some think that they might be robbed or that it could be an illegal operation.”
The nationwide inspections are taking place in compliance with a High Court order to the Minister of Environment and Tourism to appoint inspectors in accordance with Section 4 of the Casino and Gambling Houses Act, 1994.
Though inspections in the region of Windhoek have been completed, and MET officers have now begun visiting properties in the Erongo Region, Muyunda stated the Ministry “will only be able to share the numbers once inspections are completed in all 14 regions of the country.”
“The inspectors successfully completed the inspection here in Windhoek. However, we do not currently have numbers or statistics of the number of unlicensed gambling machines for Windhoek.”
In a bid to combat potential fraudulent practice, Muyunda also added that, as well as working with NamPol, any genuine government inspectors will travel in government-registered vehicles, and carry appointment letters and national documents.
