While there is a need for an improved international airport in Namibia, the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) did not follow procedures when it appointed China-based Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Corporation to expand the international airport at the cost of some N$7 billion.
According to the Office of the Presidency, which cancelled the tender, the NAC had previously invited expressions of interest for the project, but a formal tender process was never undertaken.
The Presidency also noted that subsequently a number of complaints have been brought to the Minister of Works and Transport by legal practitioners seeking redress.
A statement released late in December by presidential spokesperson Albertus Aochamub said a Cabinet committee on trade and economic development found that despite the fact that NAC issued an invitation for expressions of interest – to which several companies responded – a formal tender process was not subsequently undertaken.
“As such, some companies that did not react to the initial expression of interest may have been disadvantaged. An expression of interest cannot automatically translate into a tender process,” Aochamub said.
The Cabinet committee further found that since NAC is not in a position to finance the project, the project would have to be procured at government level under the Tender Board of Namibia Act of 1996. “The NAC process cannot supplant the Tender Board of Namibia processes,” said the statement.
It further said: “In line with the recently approved Public Procurement Act of 2015, government will take a keen interest in ensuring that the procurement of services, even from public enterprises and local authorities, in so far as they encumber the Treasury, ought to be approved by the Treasury and the Attorney General – and both these approvals are lacking.”
On that basis President Hage Geingob “resolved to instruct the Minister of Works and Transport to act under section 9(b) of the Airports Company Act, 1998, to direct that the NAC discontinues all activities relating to the upgrading of the HKIA [Hosea Kutako International Airport], so that the process commences de novo under the auspices of the Ministry of Works and Transport in line with the State Finance Act of 1991 and the Treasury Instructions thereunder. It is hoped that as a government project, the correct, adequate and transparent tender procedures will be followed.”
“The Presidency would like to state that since the new Procurement Act has already been signed into law, it will be operationalised with urgency. Going forward, therefore, government’s procurement procedures [including that of publicly-owned enterprises] should be transparent, credible and predictable.
“All participants must be told upfront what they will be evaluated against. This will ensure that conspiracy theories do not crop up and cast suspicion upon our processes,” the statement said.
The Presidency did, however, emphasise that the upgrading of the international airport is essential to government’s plan to promote Namibia as a gateway to the SADC region and regional logistics hub.
“In this regard, a modern airport is essential. To ensure fiscal sustainability it was agreed during the planning process to have a holistic approach to the modernisation of the airport, while the actual project may be implemented in phases,” Aochamub said.