Community petitions Geingob over game farms
A branch of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority is demanding that President Hage Geingob rescind the allocation of two government-owned farms to a private company.
The Ovitoto branch of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) plans to march to State House today to hand over a petition objecting to the allocation of the resettlement farms Osema and Gusinde to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris (Pty) Ltd.
In the petition the group asks for President Hage Geingob to rescind the decision that led to the allocation of the farms to the private company.
The Ministry of Land Reform announced on 12 April that the farms, which lie adjacent to the Ovitoto communal area, had been allocated to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris. Chief Vipuira Kapuuo of the OTA's Ovitoto branch said the body had made several appeals to the lands ministry to use the farms, totalling 9 128 hectares, to expand the communal area.
He made specific mention of a letter sent to former lands minister Alpheus !Naruseb on 24 January 2015 and a petition to lands minister Utoni Nujoma on 15 April 2015. He also mentioned a statement made by !Naruseb that the farms should be incorporated into the Ovitoto communal area, as well as the ministry's annual plan of 2014/15 that called for additional land to be allocated to the communal area.
The OTA similarly had a meeting with Nujoma on 19 September last year about the matter.
Shareholding in question
According to the registrar of companies in the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development, the shareholders of Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris are John Ali Iipinge (40%), Josephine Ipupa Kasheeta (20%), Gabriel Mureti (20%), Erestine Jessica Tjiundje (10%), the Ovitoto Conservancy (7%) and Angelina Operi Kanduvarisa (3%).
Conservancy members are furious over their purported shareholding, saying the conservancy on its own had applied for the farms and would not have settled for a measly 7% stake therein.
Conservancy member Kavetjuo Ndisiro further said there were never any meetings or decisions taken regarding a shareholding in Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris and charged that the chairperson, Lisias Tjeripo Tjaveondja, had unilaterally gone behind their backs and signed himself up as a shareholder.
The permanent secretary of the lands ministry, Peter Amutenya, had also made the point that individual members of the Ovitoto community, and not the conservancy, were stakeholders in the company.
Attempts to get comment from Tjaveondja were fruitless since his cellphone remained unanswered.
Registration of company dubious
More concerning, though, is that both the Ovitoto Conservancy and the OTA consider the company's registration as “dubious”.
Tjaveondja himself wrote a letter to Minister Nujoma in which he claimed that the resettlement farms were allocated to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris while it was not a registered company in the records of the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development.
From company records seen, the name of Hallie Investment Number Three Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Four (Pty) Ltd waschanged to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris on 24 April this year, well after the lands ministry has publicly announced on 12 April that the farms would be allocated to latter.
Equally controversial is that the registrar of companies reserved the name Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris from 11 August 2016 to 10 October 2016 upon an application by a certain Monica Gorases.
Kapuuo claimed that the expiry of the reservation of the company name was never renewed. He also charged that Hallie Investments had until 24 April been nothing more than a shell company. Kapuuo said when members of the Ovitoto community noted in April that there was no legal entity called the Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris, they went and reserved the same name.
This, he said, implied that nobody else other than those who had reserved and paid for the reservation of that name could access and use the name for their business.
“This leaves one to wonder how the new award winners of Farm Osema No. 63 and Farm Gusinde No 197 could have obtained this same name unless through dubious and corrupt practices,” said Kapuuo.
Kapuuo further questioned how Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris with Iipinge and Kasheeta as directors could have registered as a tourism-related business without first having acquired authorisation from the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB).
He accused the lands ministry of deliberately omitting the Ovitoto Conservancy from even entering the prequalification phase of the bidding process, claiming favouritism in the award of the resettlement farms.
“There was no competitive bidding by any other company,” charged Kapuuo.
Questions sent to director Kasheeta yesterday were not answered before going to press.
The lands ministry said it had done what was legally required by law to select beneficiaries for the farms by advertising for applicants, which it said was then “justly done”.
It said successful candidates thereafter were selected “based on credible documentation” supplied to the ministry “by each competing entity”.
CATHERINE SASMAN
In the petition the group asks for President Hage Geingob to rescind the decision that led to the allocation of the farms to the private company.
The Ministry of Land Reform announced on 12 April that the farms, which lie adjacent to the Ovitoto communal area, had been allocated to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris. Chief Vipuira Kapuuo of the OTA's Ovitoto branch said the body had made several appeals to the lands ministry to use the farms, totalling 9 128 hectares, to expand the communal area.
He made specific mention of a letter sent to former lands minister Alpheus !Naruseb on 24 January 2015 and a petition to lands minister Utoni Nujoma on 15 April 2015. He also mentioned a statement made by !Naruseb that the farms should be incorporated into the Ovitoto communal area, as well as the ministry's annual plan of 2014/15 that called for additional land to be allocated to the communal area.
The OTA similarly had a meeting with Nujoma on 19 September last year about the matter.
Shareholding in question
According to the registrar of companies in the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development, the shareholders of Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris are John Ali Iipinge (40%), Josephine Ipupa Kasheeta (20%), Gabriel Mureti (20%), Erestine Jessica Tjiundje (10%), the Ovitoto Conservancy (7%) and Angelina Operi Kanduvarisa (3%).
Conservancy members are furious over their purported shareholding, saying the conservancy on its own had applied for the farms and would not have settled for a measly 7% stake therein.
Conservancy member Kavetjuo Ndisiro further said there were never any meetings or decisions taken regarding a shareholding in Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris and charged that the chairperson, Lisias Tjeripo Tjaveondja, had unilaterally gone behind their backs and signed himself up as a shareholder.
The permanent secretary of the lands ministry, Peter Amutenya, had also made the point that individual members of the Ovitoto community, and not the conservancy, were stakeholders in the company.
Attempts to get comment from Tjaveondja were fruitless since his cellphone remained unanswered.
Registration of company dubious
More concerning, though, is that both the Ovitoto Conservancy and the OTA consider the company's registration as “dubious”.
Tjaveondja himself wrote a letter to Minister Nujoma in which he claimed that the resettlement farms were allocated to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris while it was not a registered company in the records of the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development.
From company records seen, the name of Hallie Investment Number Three Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Four (Pty) Ltd waschanged to Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris on 24 April this year, well after the lands ministry has publicly announced on 12 April that the farms would be allocated to latter.
Equally controversial is that the registrar of companies reserved the name Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris from 11 August 2016 to 10 October 2016 upon an application by a certain Monica Gorases.
Kapuuo claimed that the expiry of the reservation of the company name was never renewed. He also charged that Hallie Investments had until 24 April been nothing more than a shell company. Kapuuo said when members of the Ovitoto community noted in April that there was no legal entity called the Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris, they went and reserved the same name.
This, he said, implied that nobody else other than those who had reserved and paid for the reservation of that name could access and use the name for their business.
“This leaves one to wonder how the new award winners of Farm Osema No. 63 and Farm Gusinde No 197 could have obtained this same name unless through dubious and corrupt practices,” said Kapuuo.
Kapuuo further questioned how Ovitoto Game and Hunting Safaris with Iipinge and Kasheeta as directors could have registered as a tourism-related business without first having acquired authorisation from the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB).
He accused the lands ministry of deliberately omitting the Ovitoto Conservancy from even entering the prequalification phase of the bidding process, claiming favouritism in the award of the resettlement farms.
“There was no competitive bidding by any other company,” charged Kapuuo.
Questions sent to director Kasheeta yesterday were not answered before going to press.
The lands ministry said it had done what was legally required by law to select beneficiaries for the farms by advertising for applicants, which it said was then “justly done”.
It said successful candidates thereafter were selected “based on credible documentation” supplied to the ministry “by each competing entity”.
CATHERINE SASMAN
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