Namibia warned against ‘soft loans’

By: JO-MARÉ DUDDY

NAMIBIA should “insist” on conditions that benefit its development agenda when dealing with partners such as China, Finance Permanent Secretary Calle Schlettwein said yesterday.

If not, the country should “have the courage to say no” when it doesn’t.
Using the example of the multimillion-dollar scanner transaction between Government and the Chinese company Nuctech, currently the subject of a corruption, fraud and bribery case, Schlettwein said the incident could have been avoided if Namibia had demanded that the deal be put out on tender.
The PS made these remarks at a conference with the theme ‘Southern Africa 2020 Vision: Public Policy Priorities For The Next Decade’, where various other speakers shared his sentiments.
FNB Namibia Group Chief Executive Officer Vekuii Rukoro said Namibia should “shake off our naivety in our dealings with our former benefactors during the liberation struggle”.
This naivety, said Rukoro, is based “on the fact that we were comrades and allies forever and these guys will never seek to pursue their narrow national interest at the cost of our won national interest”.
Henning Melber, Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, agreed.
“Namibia must realise that its friends from the past aren’t necessarily its friends at present,” he warned.
In the Ministry of Finance’s application to the Tender Board to exempt the Nuctech deal from open bidding, of which The Namibian has a copy, the “special” relationship between Namibia and China takes centre stage.
“In view of the excellent and special relationship that exists between Namibia and China to further deepen the friendly relations and promote the economic and technical co-operations, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) sees the need to procure the scanners as a matter of urgency whilst exploring the opportunity under the Sino-Africa Development Initiative,” the letter, dated December 12 2007, reads.
The Tender Board agreed to waive normal tender procedures on the US$60 million deal.
“The Government of Namibia and Chinese Government will co-finance the procurement of scanning equipment during 2008/2009,” according to the approved application.
The Ministry initially intended to put the procurement of the scanners out on tender.


Three months earlier, on September 11 2007, the Ministry of Finance wrote a letter to the Tender Board, asking them to assist the Directorate Customs and Excise with the allocation of a formal tender number and advertisement for the “supply, installation and delivery” of one re-locatable X-ray examination system, one baggage inspection system and three mobile inspection systems for customs entry and exit points.
However, China insisted on tender exemption in return for a “soft loan” of about N$500 million.
“It’s a take-it-or-leave-it approach,” Schlettwein described China’s aid agenda.
“They structure aid as follows: they give you a basket of money, say governance is no problem, but insists on providing everything,” he said.
Namibia has meanwhile decided to not make use of the export credit line of US$100 million offered by the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China, co-financiers of the Nuctech deal, because of “unfavourable” terms and conditions.
Rukoro yesterday said that southern Africa, led by a partnership of politicians and businesspeople, must define a comprehensive and integrated economic and development agenda for the region.
“In the absence of such a collective regional agenda, countries such as China must not be blamed for doing the most natural thing, namely to aggressively advance their national interest in our region by taking advantage of the most-favoured nation treatment we reserve for them exclusively throughout the region as a regional ‘thank you’ for liberation solidarity,” Rukoro said.
jo-mare@namibian.
com.na

---