Judgement on Russian’s farm deal postponed

A judgement on an attempt to set aside a transaction in which Russian billionaire Rashid Sardarov acquired a 99-year lease of four farms has been postponed to 19 September.

The judgement on the Popular Democratic Movement’s (PDM) attempt to get a court order was postponed by judge Orben Sibeya in the Windhoek High Court on Thursday, because it was not yet ready.

The PDM is trying to have the farm purchase, donation and 99-year lease agreement between the government, the company Comsar Properties SA, owned by Sardarov and registered in Switzerland, and the former owners of four farms reviewed and set aside.

The party is asking the High Court to review and set aside former land reform minister Utoni Nujoma’s decision to give permission for Comsar Properties to lease the farms Rainhof, Kameelboom and Wolffsgrund and a portion of the farm Smaldeel from the government.

The farms, situated east of Windhoek and north of Dordabis, have a combined size of more than 17 000 hectares.

The PDM is also asking the court to review and set aside the government’s or Nujoma’s decision to lease the farms to Comsar Properties.

Alternatively, the party wants the court to declare that the arrangement through which the government became the registered owner of the farms, when Comsar Properties donated the land to it, and the government then agreeing to lease the same land to the company for 99 years, is unlawful.

Comsar Properties paid the purchase price of N$43,4 million to the farms’ owners and then donated the farms to the government. In return, the government agreed to thereafter lease the land to the company for 99 years at a nominal rent equal to the land tax for the farms, which currently is about N$160 000 annually.

Comsar Properties also paid N$118 million to the farms’ owners as compensation for the loss of their livestock farming business on the farms.
Before those transactions were done, Comsar Properties bought three other farms, with a combined size of about 28 000 hectares, in the same area in 2012 and 2013, and combined the land to form a game reserve operating under the name Marula Game Ranch.

The company’s farm purchases in 2012 and 2013 were done after the minister of land reform gave his consent for the acquisition of commercial farmland by the Swiss company as a non-Namibian entity, as required by the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act.

A lawyer representing the PDM argued in April, when Sibeya heard oral arguments in the matter, that the deal through which Sardarov’s company secured the 99-year lease of the four farms was an artificial transaction aimed at circumventing the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act after the Cabinet decided that the land reform minister should not give his consent for the sale of the farms to the company.

The practical effect of that deal was that the company acquired ownership of commercial farmland in Namibia, contrary to law, it was also argued.

During the hearing, a lawyer representing the minister and government argued that the act permits the minister of land reform to give consent for the acquisition, occupation or possession of land by a non-Namibian entity for investment purposes.

The main purpose of the agreement between the government and Comsar Properties was securing the company’s substantial investment in Namibia, the lawyer added.