Erasmus Shalihaxwe
Menzies Aviation Namibia has finally agreed to open and hand over its former warehouse cargo at the Hosea Kutako International Airport to the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) and Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRa).
NAC Chief Executive Officer Bisey /Uirab, confirmed yesterday that the United Kingdom-based company representatives went to the airport yesterday morning to begin the handing-over process.
“They have opened. They came to the airport this morning and I can confirm to you that the handover process is currently ongoing,” said /Uirab.
This came after Menzies was evicted from the airport last month following a court order when the Menzies contract to provide ground handling services at the airport lapsed. However, Menzies has been refusing to hand over the warehouse cargo where imported and exported goods have been kept.
Early yesterday /Uirab expressed disappointment with Menzies for ignoring numerous requests from both NAC and NamRa to give up the warehouse for NamRa’s Customs and Excise officials to facilitate the clearance and release of the relevant cargo kept in the warehouse to respective importers and owners.
He said NAC indicated to Menzies on Tuesday that NamRA has requested NAC to engage Menzies as a matter of urgency and encourage Menzies’ relevant officials to avail themselves to NamRA for purposes of commencing the process of handing over the aforesaid cargo to NamRA’s Customs and Excise officials to clear and release goods in the warehouse to the owners. However, Menzies did not respond to the request nor send any representative to the airport for the handover.
“We hasten to add that all of the NamRA letters referred to have also been directly dispatched to Menzies by NamRA. NAC further implored Menzies to urgently comply with the requests of NamRA, as more fully set out in the aforesaid letters, to enable NamRA to take over all the cargo in Menzies’ erstwhile warehouse at HKIA, for NamRA to further facilitate the clearance and release of the aforesaid cargo to respective owners,” said /Uirab.
He stressed that despite relevant NamRA officials having waited for Menzies at the airport since 16h00 on Tuesday, Menzies’ relevant personnel, unfortunately, did not show up at the airport for the aforesaid purposes.
“In the same follow-up letter of yesterday (Tuesday), NAC further informed Menzies that the relevant NamRA officials were still waiting for Menzies at HKIA for the handover referred to herein and that the said officials kept waiting for Menzies until 21h30 P.M. last night when the airport closes. NAC also conveyed to Menzies that the aforesaid NamRA officials will also be at HKIA from 08:00 a.m. this morning (Wednesday) to continue with Menzies’ handover to NamRA of all cargo in Menzies’ old warehouse, in the event that the said handover process is not concluded,” he said.
He said it is disheartening that despite concerted efforts to persuade Menzies to hand cargo over to NamRA which would have enabled the agency to release it to entities and or individuals that own such cargo.
