Model distances himself from Nghipunya’s brand

• BY ROSALIA DAVID

MODEL and founder of Katutura Fashion week Dennis Hendricks has distanced himself from being labelled as a co-owner of TM sportswear clothing brand which belongs to Fishrot accused and suspended Fishcor boss Mike Nghipunya.

This comes after Confidente requested for an update on whether the clothing brand still exists.

He said he dissociated himself with the clothing line right after the Fishrot saga occurred.

Despite several media reports stating that Hendricks was a co-owner of TM Sportswear, he however said he was never Nghipunya’s business partner.

“With which money? I didn’t even have money to partner up with him.

I was only doing marketing for him. If I was in partnership with him, wouldn’t I have been investigated long time ago but nothing of that sort happened,” he stressed.

According to Hendricks he was merely responsible for the clothing line’s marketing and he did just that.

“He was the guy with the money and I was the one with the brains for fashion.

I just stepped in to assist. We never signed any papers going to go into partnership at all.

I know there are a lot of newspapers who have written in the past that I am the co-owner perhaps because I did most of the interviews with the media,” he explained further.

TM clothing line sells sports gear and casual wear; was started in 2016 and officially launched in 2017.

Since it started, the brand has attended some of the biggest fashion showcases such as Lagos Fashion Week, Zambia Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, and locally graced the stage at the first Katutura Fashion Week in Windhoek.

According to reports, before Nghipunya’s arrest, his personal bank account reflected that he had spent more than N$270 000 on the clothing line between 2017 and 2020.

He also allegedly received about N$70 000 in his personal account on October 5 2018 and splashed N$65 000 of that money on his clothing line four days later.

He then received N0 000 from the Gwanyemba Investment Trust account before using another N0 000 of that money on his clothing line.

He further allegedly also transferred another N$100 000 from the Gwanyemba Investment Trust account to his personal account and of that money, N$75 000 went to the clothing line.