MET defends stance on Govt farms

By Eliaser Ndeyanale
THE Ministry of Environ­ment and Tourism has denied that it has failed to guard and maintain the two Gov­ernment game farms in the Ot­jozondjupa region.
About two weeks ago Confi­dente reported that the Ministry of Environment and Tourism has failed maintain game farms in the Otjozondjupa region bought by Government last year for about N$50 million.
The farms are Gusinde No.197 and Osema situated in the Ovitoto area, which measure about 20 000 hectares and were transferred to Government on February 23 2016.
On May 23 this year perma­nent secretary in the Ministry of Lands Peter Amutenya requested his counterpart in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) Malan Lindeque for his ministry to assist in guarding the game farms and maintaining fences as the Min­istry of Lands lacks expertise in managing and maintaining farms; however this never happened.
The ministry’s public relations officer Romeo Muyunda said in a media statement that they had acted immediately by deploying rangers and assistance rangers at the two Government farms that were vandalised.
Muyunda, said the letter was brought to the Ministry of Envi­ronment through the Land Acqui­sition Committee.
“Officials of the Ministry of En­vironment and Tourism have been at the farm since June 2016 assist­ing in the protection of game on the farms, providing water and maintain the fence. However, no enough fencing material has been provided by the Ministry of Land reform for daily and constant maintenance of the fence, and the officials of the two ministries are in contract in this regard.”
He further stated that there has been an unfortunate situation -while officials of the Ministry of Environment were there- whereby the communities of Ovitoto cut fences of the farms and moved in with their livestock.
“This became a difficult situation for the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to handle and there­fore the situation was reported to the Ministry of Land Reform, as the owner of the farm, for action.
“We understand the Ministry of Land Reform has reported this to the Namibian police force for fur­ther action but an eviction order is required for the police to take ac­tion,” Muyunda said.