Army, police rescue Amta

Despite a cabinet resolution that calls on all government offices, ministries and agencies (OMAs) to buy locally produced agricultural products and meat through Amta, only the defence and safety ministries have come on board. The rest of the OMAs have not yet shown an interest in procuring their fresh produce through the troubled parastatal. Yesterday, Olushandja farmers decided to supply stock to the Amta's Ongwediva fresh produce hub, so it can become operational again.Agriculture ministry executive director Percy Misika told Namibian Sun that before rolling out the food bank programme, it approached Amta to supply it with food products. In 2014 cabinet had directed that all OMAs should include a qualification requirement in their food supply tender specifications, which stipulates that food supplied to government institutions must be sourced from local producers and suppliers, particularly from Amta's national hubs. “To date, Amta confirmed that the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) came on board to source fruit and vegetables for military bases. The ministry of safety and security and the Namibian police have been procuring fruit and vegetables from Amta, but the cooperation is yet to be formalised,” said Misika. “Amta is still engaging other OMAs to establish their horticultural, meat, meat by product and agronomic needs, as directed by cabinet.” Through a cabinet resolution, originally taken in 2014, the OMAs were requested to make sure that all their institutions consume products from the regions where they are situated. On 26 February this year, finance minister Calle Schlettwein wrote to all ministers, governors, town mayors, board chairpersons and executive directors, informing them that in terms of section 73 of the Public Procurement Act of 2015, all public entities are directed to include specific provisions in their tender specifications to ensure that entities wanting to bid for any food catering contract, shall source meat, fresh produce, cereal and flour from local producers. However, Amta continues to struggle to get support from the OMAs. On 25 March, agriculture minister Alpheus !Naruseb informed all the OMAs about the implementation of the cabinet decision related to local procurement through Amta.The defence ministry confirmed during an earlier interview that through August 26 Logistics (A26L), which supplies food to all the country's army bases, it was set to start procuring its food items through Amta. Ministry spokesperson Petrus Shilumbu said their catering company, A26L, submitted an action plan to the executive director of the ministry on 11 February, which was crafted and prepared in collaboration with Amta and the agriculture ministry.According to Sylvanus Naunyango, the chairperson of Olushandja Farmers Association, the fresh produce hubs were created for them, and therefore whether there are customers or not, they will supply them with produce and see what happens from there. “We are the good producers of fresh vegetables here in the north and the idea of coming up with the Ongwediva fresh produce hub was to assist us. The idea was to assist us to penetrate into the formal market, because at the moment our products are only for the informal market. We were not happy to hear that the hub was closing its operations due to lack of market,” Naunyango said.“Since we have produce in our fields, we decided to stock up the hub and then they see what they will use the produce for.”Amta Ongwediva fresh produce hub regional manager Jacob Hamutenya confirmed they received a variety of produce from the Olushandja farmers' yesterday morning.“We will see what we will do with the produce, because we have to get them a market. First we will make contact with the Rundu and Windhoek hubs to find out what we have and do not have, so we can supply them. The rest, we will squeeze them into the existing market and we are positive that the informal traders will take up many of our products,” Hamutenya said.“It is obvious that after receiving produce from the farmers, they are also giving us invoices, which we have to process and do payment.”ILENI NANDJATO

Army, police rescue Amta

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-17

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Army, police rescue Amta

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-17

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