Fishing company sues for N$57 million, alleges theft of products

A Walvis Bay-based fishing company is suing a close corporation, a company and two other defendants for N$57 million in the Windhoek High Court, claiming 2 100 tonnes of its fish was stolen from a cold storage facility at Walvis Bay.

In a document filed at the High Court, the Pengeko Eeshi Fishing is claiming that it suffered damages in an amount of N$57.2 million due to the theft of its fish products and the failure to properly handle the storage of its products.

Pengeko Eeshi Fishing is suing the close corporation Wakondo Investments, its managing director, Helvi Nujoma, the company Afromerge Investments and its managing director, Alexander Woermann, in a claim filed at the end of October last year.

In Pengeko Eeshi Fishing’s claim, the company’s lawyer, Karel Gaeb, says the company and Wakondo Investments concluded an oral lease agreement for cold storage facilities for the company’s fish products in December 2023.

Gaeb also says Pengeko Eeshi Fishing caught about 13 531 tonnes of fish between December 2023 and March last year, and placed some 9 202 tonnes of this fish in cold storage with Wakondo Investments.

During that period, Gaeb says, Afromerge Investments and Woermann “developed a keen interest in [Pengeko Eeshi Fishing’s] business and expressed a desire to purchase large quantities of fish” from the company.

Afromerge Investments and Woermann paid Pengeko Eeshi Fishing for about 2 000 tonnes of fish bought by them, it is stated in the fishing company’s court claim.

According to Gaeb, Afromerge Investments and Woermann also instructed Wakondo Investments and Nujoma to release about 2 000 tonnes of fish of Pengeko Eeshi Fishing from cold storage, to be loaded onto lorries of Afromerge Investments, allegedly without the fishing company having ordered the release of the fish products to Afromerge Investments.

This is claimed to have caused financial damages totalling N$57.2 million to Pengeko Eeshi Fishing.

The company is claiming as well that Wakondo Investments and Nujoma failed to disclose to it that the storage facilities in which its fish products were stored belonged to Afromerge Investments and Woermann.

Afromerge Investments and Woermann have notified the court that they are opposing the legal action being taken by Pengeko Eeshi Fishing.

A case planning order on the exchange of pleadings in the matter was issued by judge Orben Sibeya on Thursday this week.

Sibeya postponed the case to 17 July for a case management hearing.

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