Community game park – going, going gone at a 1 000% profit

THE man who bought one of Omaruru’s prime properties, an out-of-town 808-hectare plot, for less than N$50 000, sold it for nearly 1 000 per cent more, The Namibian learnt yesterday.

Businessman Michael Goagoseb paid N$48 500 to the Omaruru Municipality for the community game park, together with game, through the Central Park West, Close Corporation (CC). He sold it for about N$450 000.The price of the deal has raised eyebrows at the town after it was reported in The Namibian last week, though some residents had long suspected that the park had gone for a song in 2000.One of the councillors who approved the sale, Gruzi Goseb, has defended the decision.He claims that a “a small group of whites” at Omaruru are bitter at seeing a black person “empowered”.Goagoseb sold the company to Omaruru-based German businessmen Herbert Ludwig Kempkes and Dietmar Rauer in 2001.Kempkes said in a telephone interview yesterday that he paid N$70 000 for the game alone, and perhaps another N$385 000 for the land.He was not sure of the exact amount, but added that the total sum could have been N$485 000.The Namibian understands that at the time the municipality sold the park for N$48 000, a German businessman had offered to buy it for more than 10 times the price at N$500 000.The information could not be confirmed.The game included eland, giraffe, kudu, oryx and springbok.Goagoseb declined to comment.He fended off questions, claiming there appeared to be a witchhunt.Omaruru Councillor Goseb last week dismissed those residents calling themselves the ‘Omaruru Development Concerned Group’ – who have questioned dubious decisions of previous councils – as a “score of white people” using “three or four blacks to camouflage their identity”.He suggested they were merely unhappy that blacks were in charge, and that they were undoing discriminatory apartheid municipalities’ separate development.Goseb, who is a Swapo Councillor and was mayor for a long time, said all of Omaruru was surrounded by private estates, called townlands, which had been sold at give-away prices to whites.He questioned the wisdom of reviewing what might appear to be questionable decisions of previous municipal councils.Goseb then challenged The Namibian to “go back into the files” and investigate those questionable deals.He claimed the paper’s reporting appeared aimed at “smearing” some people, and alleged that the reporter was “supporting whites”.The Omaruru Municipality said this week it would only respond to questions about this deal and several others after a council meeting to be held in two weeks.It is still not clear what the conditions of the sale for the community game park were.But the transaction attracted objections by the Omaruru Chamber of Commerce from the time the Municipality first announced it wanted to sell in 1997.Central Park West was registered as a company in 1997 with its main purpose the “establishing and running [of] a game farm and lodge”.It was owned by the Windhoek-based Goagoseb, with a shareholding of 40 percent.The rest was equally shared among Michael Kevin Goagoseb, Rheinhard Gavin Goagoseb and Peter Biko Goagoseb, whose dates of birth were given as 1985, 1988 and 1989 respectively.No significant development has taken place at the game park since the deal.He sold it for about N$450 000.The price of the deal has raised eyebrows at the town after it was reported in The Namibian last week, though some residents had long suspected that the park had gone for a song in 2000.One of the councillors who approved the sale, Gruzi Goseb, has defended the decision.He claims that a “a small group of whites” at Omaruru are bitter at seeing a black person “empowered”.Goagoseb sold the company to Omaruru-based German businessmen Herbert Ludwig Kempkes and Dietmar Rauer in 2001.Kempkes said in a telephone interview yesterday that he paid N$70 000 for the game alone, and perhaps another N$385 000 for the land.He was not sure of the exact amount, but added that the total sum could have been N$485 000.The Namibian understands that at the time the municipality sold the park for N$48 000, a German businessman had offered to buy it for more than 10 times the price at N$500 000.The information could not be confirmed.The game included eland, giraffe, kudu, oryx and springbok.Goagoseb declined to comment.He fended off questions, claiming there appeared to be a witchhunt.Omaruru Councillor Goseb last week dismissed those residents calling themselves the ‘Omaruru Development Concerned Group’ – who have questioned dubious decisions of previous councils – as a “score of white people” using “three or four blacks to camouflage their identity”.He suggested they were merely unhappy that blacks were in charge, and that they were undoing discriminatory apartheid municipalities’ separate development.Goseb, who is a Swapo Councillor and was mayor for a long time, said all of Omaruru was surrounded by private estates, called townlands, which had been sold at give-away prices to whites.He questioned the wisdom of reviewing what might appear to be questionable decisions of previous municipal councils.Goseb then challenged The Namibian to “go back into the files” and investigate those questionable deals.He claimed the paper’s reporting appeared aimed at “smearing” some people, and alleged that the reporter was “supporting whites”.The Omaruru Municipality said this week it would only respond to questions about this deal and several others after a council meeting to be held in two weeks.It is still not clear what the conditions of the sale for the community game park were.But the transaction attracted objections by the Omaruru Chamber of Commerce from the time the Municipality first announced it wanted to sell in 1997.Central Park West was registered as a company in 1997 with its main purpose the “establishing and running [of] a game farm and lodge”.It was owned by the Windhoek-based Goagoseb, with a shareholding of 40 percent.The rest was equally shared among Michael Kevin Goagoseb, Rheinhard Gavin Goagoseb and Peter Biko Goagoseb, whose dates of birth were given as 1985, 1988 and 1989 respectively.No significant development has taken place at the game park since the deal.