Agronomic board, Amta fight in court over levies

WERNER MENGES and NGHINOMENWA ERASTUSTHE Namibian Agronomic Board, the Agro-Marketing Trading Agency and the agriculture ministry are at loggerheads over levies collected by the agency, with the board now suing the agency for close to N$30 million in a case in which the agriculture minister is also involved as a party.

The Namibian Agronomic Board (NAB) and the agency (Amta) are now squaring off against each other in a multimillion-dollar dispute that could potentially affect farmers and create distrust in the newly established agricultural value chain.

In a case filed at the Windhoek High Court, NAB is asking the court to restrain Amta from making withdrawals from a bank account into which levies collected by the agency have been paid. NAB wants the court to order Amta to pay N$29,5 million to the board and to also pay all levies collected since 20 January this year to the board.

A government lawyer representing the minister of agriculture, who is cited as second respondent in the case, has given notice that he is opposing the board’s application. The NAB’s legal action follows a decision that the board took in November 2018 to end Amta’s mandate to act as its agent to assist in the performance of the regulatory functions for controlled agronomic and horticultural products.

Amta was established in 2014, as a specialised agency of the ministry of agriculture, and was intended to assist the NAB with the marketing, handling and trading of agronomic products. Additionally, Amta was tasked with the collection of statutory levies and fees from all producers, traders and processors of fruits and vegetables.

In an affidavit filed at the court, NAB chief executive officer Fidelis Mwazi says the board decided on 22 November 2018 to terminate Amta’s appointment as its implementing agent. He also says at a meeting between NAB, Amta and the agriculture ministry last July, it was agreed that the collection of levies and fees carried out by Amta should again become the board’s responsibility from 1 August last year.

Before that, though Amta informed NAB in June last year that its board had decided that Amta would withhold levies and fees collected on behalf of NAB and that in future the agency would keep 29% of the levies and fees collected on behalf of the NAB.

Mwazi also says, in his affidavit, NAB chairperson Michael Iyambo addressed a letter to the minister of agriculture in October last year in which he requested the minister to transfer all regulatory functions from Amta to the NAB with effect from the start of December. Despite NAB’s termination of Amta’s mandate, bank records show that Amta withdrew N$53,6 million from the account in which the levies and fees it collected were supposed to be kept, Mwazi says.

He also states that the N$53,6 million exceeds the amount of N$38,6 million that the NAB initially budgeted for as assistance to Amta during the 2019/20 financial year – with the result that the NAB wants the court to order Amta to pay that difference of N$15 million to it. In addition, NAB wants Amta to be ordered to pay to it the balance of close to N$14,5 million that was in the levies and fees bank account at the end of January.

Mwazi also says NAB’s lawyers, on three occasions, last year asked Amta to pay to NAB all levies and fees collected by it and not to make unauthorised withdrawals from the levy account. However, despite this request, Amta “has persisted with its illegal activities”.

NAB has announced that it would take over levy collection and all other regulatory functions such as border control, market-share promotion, issuing of permits and farm inspections from 1 April 2020.

Agriculture ministry executive director Percy Misika told The Namibian that the ministry would be opposing NAB’s court application. Misika said the ministry did not dispute with the board taking back its regulatory mandate from Amta, but differed with NAB about the procedure it is using now, by passing a Cabinet directive and notice that was used to allocate the mandate to Amta.

He said due to the conflicting task of Amta, as a marketing agency, it agreed that the supervisory and permit functions should go back to NAB, because Amta itself is also participating in the activities that it is regulating. However, Misika said the return of the functions to NAB should be done procedurally through a Cabinet notice, as was done before, as opposed to the route taken by NAB, where the board is already taking over the task from Amta without a Cabinet pronouncement.

He also indicated that the dispute between NAB and Amta is about money more than anything else, and noted that since Amta took over levy collection and border control, the amount collected improved significantly in comparison to what NAB used to collect when it outsourced the collection to private companies.

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