Hou's trucks laden with timber again

Chief forestry officer for the north-eastern regions John Niipale says no permit to transport timber to the port of Walvis Bay will be issued by the regional directorate.

Niipale was responding to enquiries regarding six trucks loaded with logs that were parked in Rundu over the weekend. The trucks were stationed opposite the saw mill of Chinese businessman Xuecheng Hou in Rundu's industrial area.

President Hage Geingob said during a recent Swapo rally in Rundu that farmers can sell their timber wherever they like.

“I am announcing today that those timber that have been cut and is rotting must go. In the future we are going to have a proper way of having factories to produce furniture here. But it's already cut, it's on the ground, lying there rotting, sell that anywhere you can,” Geingob said at the time.

When questioned about the trucks, Niipale explained that Hou was granted a permit to transport the logs from Ncaute, where he cuts and stockpiles his timber, to Rundu. “We gave him the permit to transport the already harvested timber from the depot in the forest (Ncaute) to the town's saw mill,” Niipale said.

He added that Hou will not be able to move the timber unless he acquires a new permit, as the recently granted permit only caters for the transportation of the logs from Ncaute to Rundu.

When asked how long it will take to issue a new permit, Niipale said because it is already cut timber, and with the moratorium lifted, the permit to transport the logs to any part of the country can be done within a period of one hour.

Niipale, however, explained that since there is an issue at Walvis Bay, where timber logs have piled up due to the moratorium on the export of timber, they will not issue a permit for timber to be transported there, in order to avoid conflict and confusion.

“We will not issue a permit to transport the timber to Walvis Bay, because there is already timber stuck at the port, because of the moratorium,” he said, while saying their Windhoek head office would have to look at whether such a permit would be issued.





Niipale also revealed that for the past month and a half, officials from the forestry and environmental ministries have travelled to farms to assess the situation, and more specifically to find out how many already cut logs are lying idle on the farms.

He said the exercise enabled them to get the actual information that will guide them in terms of issuing permits.

In April environment minister Pohamba Shifeta said the law prohibits the export of unprocessed or semi-processed Namibian timber.

This was after the relevant ministries placed a moratorium on timber activities, in order to preserve nature and stop the plundering of trees that were being sold to Asian buyers for peanuts, therefore robbing government of millions of dollars in taxes.

During his recent presidential town hall meeting in Rundu, angry timber harvesters asked Geingob to solve the impasse by lifting the moratorium.

Two months later, the ban on the transportation of timber in Namibia was lifted, but with stringent conditions attached.

These conditions include that no fresh trees should be harvested and that all logs must be loaded in the presence of officials from the forestry and environment ministries.

It was also agreed that officials from the two ministries may be supported by law-enforcement agencies, including the police, and that no unprocessed timber shall be exported from Namibia, while timber processed to the final stage of use may be exported under an export licence issued by forestry officials.



KENYA KAMBOWE