NWR blames MD for JV deal cancellation
The NWR board chair has blamed managing director Zelna Hengari for the cancellation of a joint-venture agreement with Sun Karros Safaris that is now the subject of a lawsuit.
Leonard Iipumbu, the chair of the Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) board, has laid the blame for the cancellation of a joint-venture agreement with Sun Karros Safaris at the door of NWR managing director Zelna Hengari.
According to a statement issued by Iipumbu last week, the cancellation letter sent on 26 March this year “was sent pursuant to the misrepresentations made to the current NWR board by the NWR managing director Zelna Hengari, that the joint-venture agreement between NWR and Sun Karros to develop glamorous tented camps at Sesriem was approved and authorised during the term and by the previous board of directors of NWR, whose term terminated on 14 January 2016.”
Iipumbu says the agreement, which was signed by the managing director of Sun Karros, Bertus Struwig, on 30 May last year and then by Hengari on 11 June 2018, was cancelled by the current board because it had been approved by Hengari “without the knowledge and authorisation of the board of directors of NWR and the minister of environment and tourism”.
He added that the board would not comment on the urgent application by Sun Karros currently before the High Court.
Papers were served on NWR and the environment minister at the end of March and the application will be heard on 24 April.
In his founding affidavit, Jacobus Marthinus Struwig, managing director of Sun Karros, said they had invested more than N$43.4 million in the construction of a luxury camping resort at Sesriem.
It was one of five such resorts to be established in terms of the joint venture (JV) that had been signed on 11 June last year. Sun Karros had started investing in the Sesriem project as far back as August 2017. Construction is under way and reservations by international tour operators have already been confirmed and paid for. The facility is scheduled to open on 1 July this year.
“Should construction not continue, the Sesriem camps will not be ready by July 2019 and the current bookings will not be honoured,” Struwig wrote in his affidavit. As at 15 March, the total value of reservations stood at just under N$4.8 million, he stated.
Struwig added that the reputational damage to Sun Karros, should the facility not open, would have a direct impact on all its other business ventures, as it was almost entirely dependent on foreign tour operators “Sun Karros, which has pre-existing and current relationships with all of the tour operators who concluded bookings, also stands to suffer severe reputational harm if these bookings have to be cancelled.” He added that the tour operators would not make bookings at any Sun Karros facility again.
“The long-term financial loss for Sun Karros would be enormous. The total forecast profit on the Sesriem camps over the 30 years of the JV were calculated to be in excess of N$480 million, of which half would have gone to NWR and half to Sun Karros.
“This is not factoring in the profits that could be lost in respect of the remainder of the camps which are still to be constructed in terms of the JV which cumulatively will run into hundreds of millions of dollars,” Struwig wrote.
He estimated that about 150 jobs would be lost.
YANNA SMITH
According to a statement issued by Iipumbu last week, the cancellation letter sent on 26 March this year “was sent pursuant to the misrepresentations made to the current NWR board by the NWR managing director Zelna Hengari, that the joint-venture agreement between NWR and Sun Karros to develop glamorous tented camps at Sesriem was approved and authorised during the term and by the previous board of directors of NWR, whose term terminated on 14 January 2016.”
Iipumbu says the agreement, which was signed by the managing director of Sun Karros, Bertus Struwig, on 30 May last year and then by Hengari on 11 June 2018, was cancelled by the current board because it had been approved by Hengari “without the knowledge and authorisation of the board of directors of NWR and the minister of environment and tourism”.
He added that the board would not comment on the urgent application by Sun Karros currently before the High Court.
Papers were served on NWR and the environment minister at the end of March and the application will be heard on 24 April.
In his founding affidavit, Jacobus Marthinus Struwig, managing director of Sun Karros, said they had invested more than N$43.4 million in the construction of a luxury camping resort at Sesriem.
It was one of five such resorts to be established in terms of the joint venture (JV) that had been signed on 11 June last year. Sun Karros had started investing in the Sesriem project as far back as August 2017. Construction is under way and reservations by international tour operators have already been confirmed and paid for. The facility is scheduled to open on 1 July this year.
“Should construction not continue, the Sesriem camps will not be ready by July 2019 and the current bookings will not be honoured,” Struwig wrote in his affidavit. As at 15 March, the total value of reservations stood at just under N$4.8 million, he stated.
Struwig added that the reputational damage to Sun Karros, should the facility not open, would have a direct impact on all its other business ventures, as it was almost entirely dependent on foreign tour operators “Sun Karros, which has pre-existing and current relationships with all of the tour operators who concluded bookings, also stands to suffer severe reputational harm if these bookings have to be cancelled.” He added that the tour operators would not make bookings at any Sun Karros facility again.
“The long-term financial loss for Sun Karros would be enormous. The total forecast profit on the Sesriem camps over the 30 years of the JV were calculated to be in excess of N$480 million, of which half would have gone to NWR and half to Sun Karros.
“This is not factoring in the profits that could be lost in respect of the remainder of the camps which are still to be constructed in terms of the JV which cumulatively will run into hundreds of millions of dollars,” Struwig wrote.
He estimated that about 150 jobs would be lost.
YANNA SMITH
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article