Allexer Namundjembo
Namcor Interim Managing Director, Ebson Uanguta acknowledged that the institution has significant debts mainly owed to its suppliers.
Uanguta said this on Tuesday while giving an overview of the company’s operations and strategic progress at the Government Information Centre.
“These were possibly things that went wrong, hence Namcor found itself in significant debt, and because of that, we needed financial support from the government as a shareholder. We appreciate the government for its commitment because they came and supported Namcor during that difficult time,’’ Uanguta said.
He explained that the institution then came up with a sovereign guarantee of about N$1.2 billion.
He claimed that the entity needed N$1.2 billion to keep Namcor out of liquidation and prevent the creditors from suing it.
“The sovereign guarantee helped us to restructure our debts and to almost bring us back to the business. Our debts almost caused creditors to lose trust in Namcor, and if they lose that hope they will stop trading with us. That would have affected us negatively,” he added.
Uanguta went on to say that the recovery plan ensured the streamlining of processes and the establishment of new policies to replace the outdated ones.
“The 10% of these discoveries held by Namcor is for the Namibian people, and if production starts, that 10% will definitely start generating significant revenue for Namcor and for the government. We are not happy with the 10%, but exploring and discovering oil is such an expensive task.
‘’To drill one well will cost you US$1 million which is expensive. You will also not know if you will get the products you are looking for. We had no resources to start our own exploration,” he added.
Uanguta added that he is confident that the explorers will soon start with the drilling. He also highlighted that the drilling will enable Namibia to have hydrocarbon resources both offshore and onshore.
He said drilling is currently underway at the Kavango basin in Kavango West.
Reflecting on his journey, Uanguta said when he joined Namcor he found a team that did a great job of supporting the entity not to go down.
“The staff and executive came up with the recovery plan, which was meant to stabilise Namcor. They ensured to establish efficiency measures to reduce unnecessary expenses,” he added.
