THE Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform has become fertile ground for emergency consultancies and tenders to the politically connected.
Insiders accuse the ministry leadership of deliberately sidestepping normal tender processes as a means of facilitating awarding tenders to a select few handpicked politically connected individuals.
The ministry’s administrative head, Ndiyakupi Nghituwamata, has been the target of complaints and accusations of maladministration.
While the ministry maintains that there was nothing untoward about its actions.
The Issue has established that the ministry has dished out at least N$52 million on four tenders and consultancies, all on an emergency procurement basis.
Interestingly, all transactions were done by the ministry on behalf of the ailing Agricultural Business Development Agency (Agribusdev), a government agency tasked with running the government’s green scheme projects.
The ministry, however, insists that switching to emergency and direct procurement has helped transform the government’s green scheme projects, which were dormant. Ministry spokesperson Jennifer Paulus told The Issue that the switch facilitated an increase in production and activities at the green scheme projects, which are now running at 95% capacity.
This week, the media reported that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is investigating how Urban and Rural Development Minister James Sankwasa’s Cha-cha-Cha Management Consultancy managed to get a N$5 million emergency consultancy services contract from the agriculture ministry.
The consultancy was for the closure of Agribusdev, the integration of the agency back into the ministry and the laying off of some employees. The media reports further state that retired deputy director of human resources Stephanus Niikondo, who drafted the terms of the consultancy shortly before leaving the ministry, is now working for Cha-cha-Cha as the lead consultant.
However, the dishing out of ‘emergency’ consultancies does not end there.
In March this year, the agriculture ministry awarded a six-month N$9 million emergency consultancy to businessman Vilho Nghipondoka’s Omhalanga Investments (not to be mistaken with Vaino Nghipondoka’s Omhalanga Mills).
The consultancy requires Nghipondoka to come up with an operationalisation strategy for the green scheme irrigation projects. Nghipondoka has experience with green schemes and was at some point responsible for running the Etunda green scheme irrigation project near Ruacana. Vilho Nghipondoka could not be reached for comment at the time of publishing.
EMERGENCY FERTILISERS
Towards the end of 2022, the agriculture ministry granted Swapo-linked businessman Vaino Nghipondoka’s (not Vilho Nghipondoka) Growmax Agri-Fertilizer two emergency tenders for the supply of fertiliser to the government green scheme projects, with a combined value of N$38 million.
The two emergency tenders did not go through the ordinary public tendering process, and they were issued about three weeks apart from each other.
Government documents seen by The Issue indicate that on 14 October 2022, the agriculture ministry issued Growmax with a N$19.8 million contract and with another N$18.4 million contract on 2 November 2022.
The decision sparked outrage among Growmax’s competitors at the time. Some complained about the quality of fertilisers being supplied by the company, while others accused it of having local manufacturer status and using such status to get the tenders while it allegedly imports its products from South Africa.
“We were not handpicked, and all was done above board,” Nghipondoka said. He told The Issue that there was a competitive process where Growmax was asked to submit quotations, and his company emerged as the preferred supplier. He said it was not a direct procurement process because he knows that other companies also provided their quotations.
Nghipondoka also added that he does qualify to be called a local manufacturer, contrary to claims made by his detractors.
“The plant has fertiliser, and it is working, you can go there,” he said, adding that Growmax imports raw material and mixes the fertiliser locally at their factory near Otjiwarongo. He said that his initiative is more than just value addition, and even then he called on the government to purposefully support local initiatives.
Agriculture ministry spokesperson Paulus said that October 2022 coincided with the ministry’s takeover of the green scheme projects from AgriBusidev and that at the time, the projects had been idle for a few years. She said the emergency procurement was needed to urgently get the green schemes running again.
“The ministry wishes to put on the record that to date it has awarded 20 emergency bids to previously disadvantaged bidders and 25 to previously advantaged bidders, these are namely Cherry Irrigation Namibia, Agra Namibia, Eco Projects, John Deers, Otjiwarongo Motors and Grootfontein Crop Care, just to mention a few,” said Paulus in the ministry’s emailed response. She added that the ministry did not discriminate when it was awarding tenders via the direct procurement methods and that all Namibians were given an opportunity.
