Air Namibia’s top directors quit

AIR Namibia is experiencing a leadership vacuum after board chairperson Dee Sauls-Deckenbrock and her deputy Nangula Kauluma resigned last Thursday.

Sauls-Deckenbrock is a practising lawyer with her own law firm, while Kauluma is an executive at First National Bank (FNB) Namibia.

They were both appointed to the Air Namibia board of directors for a three-year term with effect from 1 January 2019. Their resignations come five months after the airline’s acting managing director, Mandi Samson, relinquished the position she had held for close to five years on 15 March 2019.

Works spokesperson Julius Ngweda said the ministry will be looking at filling those empty slots as a matter of emergency.

“We know the situation Air Namibia is in financially, and it is not easy to sit in that chair as a managing director, a board chair or vice chairperson. Tomorrow [today], we will look into appointing someone new as a matter of an emergency,” he added.

Public enterprises minister Leon Jooste yesterday said he and works minister John Mutorwa only found out about the resignations on Thursday afternoon. The resignations come at the brink of possible liquidation of Air Namibia due to the fact that the ailing parastatal has failed to make a profit since it was set up, and has relied on government bailouts amounting to N$8 billion to date.

Jooste said he understands why the two – whom he described as “highly respected and busy professionals”, would not be expected to sacrifice their own businesses and careers to serve a public enterprises board.

“I have complete understanding for their reasons, and I have no hard feelings at all. I honour both of them for making themselves available to serve, and they did so with supreme professionalism and dedication,” said Jooste.

According to him, Air Namibia is on the agenda this week of the Cabinet committee on treasury, after which Cabinet would be approached.

Ingrid Cupido, the airline’s secretary, said in a statement on Friday that the resignations were due to a combination of personal reasons, and “significantly increased responsibilities in their respective professional roles”.

She said Sauls-Deckenbrock and Kauluma had indicated that because of this, they were no longer able to make the time to fulfil their duties as directors at the airline. The current board was appointed with the mandate to appoint a managing director for Air Namibia, but this has not been realised as Samson and Xavier Masule have been acting in that position ever since.

Currently, the board consists of Escher Luanda, Heritaha Nankole Muyoba, Willy Mertens and Alois Nyandoro.

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