Aviation board denies blocking training academy

The Namibia Civil Aviation Authority board has denied attempts to sabotage or delay the approval of an application to establish an aerodrome firefighting and aviation training institution.

This comes after Eagle Aviation Academy director Norman Pule, a retired Namibia Airports Company (NAC) chief aviation firefighter, wrote to NCAA board chairperson Bethuel Mujetenga on 16 March, seeking intervention to establish an aerodrome rescue and firefighting training school.

He said his application for an aerodrome firefighting and aviation (ARFF) training organisation (ATO) formerly lodged in September 2025, has only passed the first phase of the process.

“The first stage took nearly four months, and if each subsequent stage follows a similar timeline, compounded by the inevitable back-and-forth for amendments, the process might stretch over two to three years,” Pule wrote, blaming NCAA executive director Toska Sem for the delays.

In his response on 31 March, Mujetenga told Pule his documents for the second phase were being reviewed by the authority.

“However, due to limited internal capacity of signed-out inspectors, the NCAA will source some skills from external stakeholders such as Southern African Development Community Safety Oversight Organisation and the African Civil Aviation Commission,” wrote the board chairperson, assuring that the NCAA was committed to supporting the certification of Eagle Aviation Academy and Services.

Pule, however, rejects this as one of the delaying tactics the NCAA is using to frustrate him, saying the authority has the capacity, otherwise they would not have started the process.

He said he had requested to meet the executive director on several occasions to clarify issues, but was ignored.

Pule believes his problems stem from his time at the NAC where he was a firefighter for 38 years and Sem was the strategic executive for business strategy. He says he suspects Sem could be orchestrating the delay in approving his application to get revenge against him.

“I was a whistleblower at the NAC and have exposed corruption which has led to a forensic investigation by Deloitte & Touche and a disciplinary hearing presided over by senior counsel Norman Tjombe, which found the strategic executive guilty of serious misconduct and recommended her dismissal and a report to the ACC,” he says.

The Namibian has seen some documents pertaining to the case.

Pule says Sem was, however, not dismissed as recommended, until she voluntarily left the NAC to join the NCAA as executive director.

“They had started victimising me, including seeking my transfer to any of the Katima, Rundu, Keetmanshoop or Lüderitz airports, which amounted to constructive dismissal,” he wrote to minister of works and transport Veikko Nekundi on 9 March.

He says he was eventually demoted to terminal operations manager, which pushed him into early retirement in October 2025.

Pule says Namibia currently has no ARFF-specific organisation of its own and relies on South African consultants, adding that aviation firefighting is different from local authority firefighting.

“I want to establish the first specialist aviation firefighting training institution, because I have the qualifications and experience,” he says, adding that he had invested a substantial amount of money into the venture.

Pule says responses from Nekundi and the Anti-Corruption Commission are still pending.

Asked for comment last week, Sem said she has worked with Pule at the NAC, but denied knowing Pule was a whistleblower.

“It is news to me he was a whistleblower. He must prove it (his claims) to a competent authority.

I have nothing to hide and will subject myself to any review as I serve in a public office and need to be transparent, ethical and with integrity.

“I fail to appreciate how I would hold a personal vendetta against a junior staff member who had no direct relation to my duty then,” she said.

Sem acknowledged that the NCAA had received Eagle Aviation Academy’s application to establish an academy, and that this was the first application of its kind in the country. Such applications require undergoing five phases.

“At a meeting on 17 September 2025 with the personnel licensing unit, the applicant was advised either to conduct training through an existing service provider while completing the five-phase certification process or to endure the five-phase process.”

Sem said Eagle Aviation Academy opted for the five-phase process, which normally takes 180 days.

Pule says he had applied for an independent licence, not to be under a non-ARFF ATO entity.

“This would have stripped my initiative of its independence, forcing me to operate under another entity. I categorically refused,” he says.

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