By Kuvee Kangueehi
Windhoek
The Managing Director of Namcor, Sam Beukes, has acknowledged his company’s financial losses in the fuel supply agreement between Namcor and Afroneft since the beginning of this year.
In a press statement issued on Friday, Beukes said the reported losses that Namcor incurred in March on the vessel, Emerald Star, are “clear operational losses that occurred as a result of the international crude oil market that at that time escalated beyond expectations”. He did not mention a figure.
He added that the situation was exacerbated by the depreciation of the Namibian dollar against the United States dollar to levels above N$8.
Beukes said, “The environment of oil trading exposes any player to the concomitant risk and rewards.
It should be noted that Namcor entered this arena of international oil trading for the first time in 2008. Prior efforts by our former suppliers to build capacity and transfer skills have failed, hence all the teething problems faced currently.”
As a remedy to the worrying situation, Beukes said the Namcor management has developed a mitigating strategy and the three last shipments delivered by Namcor have generated profits. So, the losses that have been incurred will be recovered within the next few months.
“All incidents which have occurred over the past five months during the process of importing petroleum products have enabled Namcor to build sufficient capacity to capably handle all logistics and operational matters pertaining to the importation of petroleum products.”
Beukes added that the board of directors, he himself, the executive management and all Namcor staff are transparent professionals who have the interest of Namibians at heart when carrying out the mandate of supplying the country’s growing petroleum product requirements.
Beukes was appointed managing director of the oil procurement company last year.
Meanwhile, Minister of Mines and Energy, Erkki Nghimtina says the leakage of the report on the Namcor vessel – MT Farandol – and the oil industry to the New Era newspaper could jeopardise plans the ministry had to rectify the financial losses at Namcor.
Speaking to New Era, Nghimtina vowed to establish who leaked the sensitive document and said the Government has its procedures and was trying to do something.
“I was the one who put up the investigations but now everything is exposed and people know what is happening.”
The minister refused to divulge whether a team was set up to investigate whether or not there has been negligence and/or recklessness on the part of the board of directors of Namcor, as well as the responsible employees for the financial losses as recommended by the task team. He, however, said something was being done.