Joubert hits back at Ministry

MILLIONAIRE land baron Gert Joubert, who owns a 65 000-hectare private game reserve near Omaruru, has denied that he wants to buy additional land, as suggested by the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement earlier this week.

“Journalists of six newspapers attended my conference and can vouch that I never mentioned buying land,” Joubert said yesterday in a written response sent from Cape Town, South Africa. Joubert last week came up with a multi-billion-dollar investment plan for ecotourism and said the whole of Namibia should be turned into one single game reserve, which would generate substantial revenue from tourists.He said the land-reform process was scaring away potential investors, however.”Land reform is perceived by foreign investors as the trigger, the catalyst that imploded Zimbabwe’s economy into the basket case it is today,” Joubert noted in his response.”Zimbabwe became the laughing stock of the world, that’s why land reform scares the living daylights out of foreign investors and not only in agriculture or ecotourism, but in the whole economy,” he added.”The only sense that commercial land reform makes is political and emotional, but definitely not business-wise.”If the nation was willing to pay the price for that goal, Namibia should be aware that it might in future face the wrath of the masses – the poor and unemployed that were unconsciously helping to pay for the expensive “feel-good” exercise and not benefiting from it.If more people became subsistence farmers, something was terribly wrong with a country’s economy, Joubert stated.”I believe that we like brothers can discuss this controversial issue in an amicable way.”Like communism and separate development (Russia and South Africa) one can waste billions of dollars on promoting land reform in Namibia, but foreign investors will still find it unpalatable because of the way it is executed and also in its present form it does not make any economic sense to them.”Joubert said he would like a lively debate in Namibia on the topic and would “gladly appear on live NBC television to debate the economic merits of land reform.”He offered to become a free advisor to the Ministry of Lands.”My sincere advice to the Department of Land Reform is: ‘Take your focus away from commercial farmland and concentrate on unlocking the billions frozen away in communal areas, unavailable for the upcoming class of black entrepreneurs that needs all the capital they can get their hands on,’” Joubert concluded.Joubert last week came up with a multi-billion-dollar investment plan for ecotourism and said the whole of Namibia should be turned into one single game reserve, which would generate substantial revenue from tourists.He said the land-reform process was scaring away potential investors, however.”Land reform is perceived by foreign investors as the trigger, the catalyst that imploded Zimbabwe’s economy into the basket case it is today,” Joubert noted in his response.”Zimbabwe became the laughing stock of the world, that’s why land reform scares the living daylights out of foreign investors and not only in agriculture or ecotourism, but in the whole economy,” he added.”The only sense that commercial land reform makes is political and emotional, but definitely not business-wise.” If the nation was willing to pay the price for that goal, Namibia should be aware that it might in future face the wrath of the masses – the poor and unemployed that were unconsciously helping to pay for the expensive “feel-good” exercise and not benefiting from it.If more people became subsistence farmers, something was terribly wrong with a country’s economy, Joubert stated.”I believe that we like brothers can discuss this controversial issue in an amicable way.”Like communism and separate development (Russia and South Africa) one can waste billions of dollars on promoting land reform in Namibia, but foreign investors will still find it unpalatable because of the way it is executed and also in its present form it does not make any economic sense to them.”Joubert said he would like a lively debate in Namibia on the topic and would “gladly appear on live NBC television to debate the economic merits of land reform.”He offered to become a free advisor to the Ministry of Lands.”My sincere advice to the Department of Land Reform is: ‘Take your focus away from commercial farmland and concentrate on unlocking the billions frozen away in communal areas, unavailable for the upcoming class of black entrepreneurs that needs all the capital they can get their hands on,’” Joubert concluded.