Erindi sale still a sore point

JEMIMA BEUKES Local ancestral land activists are still protesting the sale of Erindi Private Game Reserve despite the Namibia Competition Commission (NCC) giving a Mexican billionaire the green light to purchase the luxury estate.NCC spokesperson Dina Gowases yesterday confirmed that the main condition they had imposed was that the new owner, Alberto Baillères, may not retrench workers for five years.The sale was approved despite resolutions passed by the second land conference in October last year that no land would be sold to foreigners.Servaas van den Bosch, who is a director of Emergo, the company providing public relations services to Baillères, told Namibian Sun that Baillères wanted to respect the regulatory process and would only comment once it was completed.Meanwhile, the Namibian Ancestral Land Foundation insists the sale of Erindi would cut off the country’s largest private game reserve from the rest of Namibia, making it a “country within a country”.Sandie Tjaronda, the foundation’s spokesperson, said Erindi was “too huge a piece of land” to be sold to a single person who is a foreigner.“This is a continuous promotion of the absentee landlord regime because this Mexican will come here once a year or so. We cannot afford to apportion our land to people who will not support our economy. We will see illicit cash transfers and this money will not be hugely invested in our economy except for a few salaries that will be paid. The rest of the money will be taken out of the country,” said Tjaronda.He added that the Namibian government had a moral obligation to ensure that Namibians have unhindered access to the gravesites of their ancestors at Erindi.“Now people must with sore and bleeding hearts look on as their ancestral land is taken away by foreigners,” said Tjaronda.jemima@namibiansun.com

Erindi sale still a sore point

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-22

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Erindi sale still a sore point

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-22

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