Since the expiration of the current Namibia Agronomic Board’s (NAB) board term in June 2020, agriculture minister Calle Schlettwein has been extending its stay, with no clear end in sight.
The Michael Iyambo-led board was appointed for three years in 2017.
Marina Muller, Jason Emvula, Josephine Fugre, Hubertus Hamm, Wilhelmina Hangunge, Ferdina Inkono, Elina Kalundu, Joycelyn Kangotue, Ludie Kolver, Lukas Mbangu and Leon Nel.
Tarcisius Shingundu, Ian Collard, Ipinge Sheehamandje and Nico van der Merwe make up the 17-member board.
Since 2020, the agriculture minister has been extending the board’s tenure at whim, without necessarily appointing a new board for a fixed period.
This has left certain quarters in the agronomic sector with more questions than answers.
The board of directors’ term has been extended for at least four times now, which is unprecedented, according to people familiar with the affairs at NAB.
There are also strong allegations that Schlettwein is sitting on a list of would-be new directors.
This, insiders say, is because those considered Schlettwein’s allies failed to make the cut in what should be a new board for a fixed term.
Schlettwein, however, said the appointment of a new board is enjoying his heightened attention.
He did, however, not say when the public can expect the announcement of the new directors.
“The minister is aware of the appointment of board members of NAB. The matter is receiving his full attention,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Jona Musheko, said last week.
Musheko stressed that “the current board is valid. We have extended their term until we properly finalise the process.”
“We are busy with the matter. One reason amongst others why we haven’t finalised it [yet] is that we want to have all parties (industry players) represented on the board for effective and collective governance of the NAB,” he said, pouring cold water on the boardroom wars that have engulfed the parastatal.
Simply put, a board of directors is the governing body of a company, elected by shareholders in the case of public companies to set strategy and oversee management.
In this case, the NAB CEO accounts to the board, while the board reports to Schlettwein on behalf of the shareholder, government.
AMTA vs NAB
Since 2020, the NAB, under Iyambo’s stewardship has been accused of collapsing the Agro-marketing and Trade Agency (Amta) after it took over the latter’s levy collection function.
The NAB took over most, if not all of Amta’s functions, rendering the agency technically useless.
In the process, NAB vowed to absorb Amta’s redundant employees.
Amta was created in 2014 as a specialised agency intended to assist the NAB with the marketing, handling and trading of agronomic products.
The agency was tasked with the collection of statutory levies and fees from all producers, traders and processors of fruits and vegetables entering the country.
All was well until Amta became fertile ground for executives paying themselves exorbitant salaries, derived mainly from levy proceeds.
This, people familiar with NAB’s operations said, led to the agronomic board’s decision to take back its regulatory levy collection function away from Amta.
At present, NAB collects the levies, while Amta has been struggling for relevance.
Caption: On it…Agriculture minister Calle Schlettwein.
Photo: Emmency Nuukala