In the debate surrounding Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila’s farm sale to the state, new details are emerging. The focus is on the way in which Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is said to have originally acquired the land.
The Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, sold the Duwib 1149 farm and the Agenab part of the Goab 760 farm as part of the land redistribution program for N $ 14,436,748 to the state at the end of last year (AZ reported). The sales price made headlines as it was almost three times higher than an original purchase price nine years ago. How they got to the farms is also increasingly being questioned.
Agriculture Minister Calle Schlettwein recently announced that the farms were owned by the company “Seize the Moment Investment Fifty Six CC” (Seize the Moment) before they were sold to the state. The minister confirmed that the Amadhila couple now hold equal shares in the company. According to Schlettwein, the company in question acquired the two farms from “the previous owner, a formerly privileged Namibian.” The transfer took place on February 28, 2012.
Seize the Moment was registered as “CC” in 2010 – a Close Corporation is a business unit that is only partially subject to Namibian company law. In mid-2011, a Nicolaas Grundeling was registered as the only member according to the documents of the Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA). BIPA documents also show that Karl-Heinz Friederich offered the Duwib 1149 farm in August 2011 for N $ 3.75 million and the Agenab part of the Goab 760 farm in November 2011 for a sum of N $ 1.45 million the said CC had sold. An AZ reader had previously claimed that “a Grundeling” should have bought these farms.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and her husband took out a mortgage as members of Seize the Moment in late 2012, according to the Land Registry. One of the farms was used as security and Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and her husband were already listed as CC members.
According to a letter submitted to AZ, Friederich had already offered the farms to the state for purchase at the beginning of 2007. He wants to stop the farm: “I no longer have the strength to look after the 178 people that I have accommodated on the farm.” The local Hai-Om (a clan of the San) have lived on the farm for many decades, and he fear that they would lose their home if the farm were to go to a private individual.
“I am offering the Duwib 1149 farm and Agenab 760 farm to the state as a ‘resettlement farm’ ‘for the Hai-Om on Duwib,” says the letter. The state must have turned down the offer at the time, otherwise there would have been no private sale. The reason for this is unknown, and it is also unknown what happened to the affected farm residents.
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