NEWS - NAMIBIA
| 2013-08-02O’Portuga survives eviction threat
Werner Menges
A POPULAR Portuguese restaurant in Windhoek, O’Portuga, reopened for business this week, after starving off a threat to evict the restaurant from the premises it has been renting for the past five years.
O’Portuga is doing normal business again after a dispute between the restaurant and its landlord was resolved this week, one of the owners of the restaurant, Miguel Pinguinhas, said yesterday.
He confirmed that a new owner has now bought the building where O’Portuga has been leasing premises since mid-2008, and that a High Court case through which the restaurant was trying to block an attempt to evict it from the premises has also been settled.
The restaurant came to the brink of closure and eviction after the Deputy Sheriff of the
High Court for the Windhoek district arrived at the restaurant two weeks ago with an eviction order and confiscated the keys to the premises.
After serving Portuguese cuisine, and building up a reputation for fine seafood, in Windhoek for the past 17 years, O’Portuga’s doors were suddenly locked without prior warning to its customers.
In an affidavit filed with the High Court, Pinguinhas states that he has a 25 percent members’ interest in the close corporation O’Portuga Restaurant CC, which owns the restaurant, while an Angolan government minister, Pedro Mutindi, holds the remaining members’ interest of 75 percent.
The restaurant moved to its current premises in Sam Nujoma Drive in Klein Windhoek in mid-2008, after Pinguinhas had bought a close corporation which had been running an Argentinian restaurant at the site, Pinguinhas related in his affidavit.
The Argentinian restaurant was subsequently closed, and O’Portuga took its place.
However, the lease agreement with the owner of the building was concluded in the name of the close corporation that ran the Argentinian restaurant, and was never transferred in writing to O’Portuga Restaurant CC.
An Angolan national bought the building in October 2008. In June 2009 he informed O’Portuga that he was cancelling the lease agreement with the restaurant and that he was giving it time until the end of June 2010 to vacate the premises.
O’Portuga, claiming that it still had a valid lease agreement which would allow it to remain on the premises until the end of February 2016, resisted subsequent attempts to evict it from the building.
The owner of the building finally sued O’Portuga Restaurant CC in the High Court, and was granted an eviction order against the restaurant in November last year.
That order was suspended when O’Portuga lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s judgement. The appeal has since then lapsed, though, and with that development the threat of eviction returned.
Pinguinhas informed the court that about N$2,2 million was invested to set up the restaurant in its current premises. O’Portuga has a monthly turnover of about N$1,1 million and employs 76 people, whose employment would have been in jeopardy if the restaurant was evicted and in effect forced to close, he warned.
O’Portuga is doing normal business again after a dispute between the restaurant and its landlord was resolved this week, one of the owners of the restaurant, Miguel Pinguinhas, said yesterday.
He confirmed that a new owner has now bought the building where O’Portuga has been leasing premises since mid-2008, and that a High Court case through which the restaurant was trying to block an attempt to evict it from the premises has also been settled.
The restaurant came to the brink of closure and eviction after the Deputy Sheriff of the
High Court for the Windhoek district arrived at the restaurant two weeks ago with an eviction order and confiscated the keys to the premises.
After serving Portuguese cuisine, and building up a reputation for fine seafood, in Windhoek for the past 17 years, O’Portuga’s doors were suddenly locked without prior warning to its customers.
In an affidavit filed with the High Court, Pinguinhas states that he has a 25 percent members’ interest in the close corporation O’Portuga Restaurant CC, which owns the restaurant, while an Angolan government minister, Pedro Mutindi, holds the remaining members’ interest of 75 percent.
The restaurant moved to its current premises in Sam Nujoma Drive in Klein Windhoek in mid-2008, after Pinguinhas had bought a close corporation which had been running an Argentinian restaurant at the site, Pinguinhas related in his affidavit.
The Argentinian restaurant was subsequently closed, and O’Portuga took its place.
However, the lease agreement with the owner of the building was concluded in the name of the close corporation that ran the Argentinian restaurant, and was never transferred in writing to O’Portuga Restaurant CC.
An Angolan national bought the building in October 2008. In June 2009 he informed O’Portuga that he was cancelling the lease agreement with the restaurant and that he was giving it time until the end of June 2010 to vacate the premises.
O’Portuga, claiming that it still had a valid lease agreement which would allow it to remain on the premises until the end of February 2016, resisted subsequent attempts to evict it from the building.
The owner of the building finally sued O’Portuga Restaurant CC in the High Court, and was granted an eviction order against the restaurant in November last year.
That order was suspended when O’Portuga lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s judgement. The appeal has since then lapsed, though, and with that development the threat of eviction returned.
Pinguinhas informed the court that about N$2,2 million was invested to set up the restaurant in its current premises. O’Portuga has a monthly turnover of about N$1,1 million and employs 76 people, whose employment would have been in jeopardy if the restaurant was evicted and in effect forced to close, he warned.
