Karas under fire over lost investment opportunity

THE Karas Regional Council has come under fire for allegedly letting a multimillion-dollar investment opportunity slip through its fingers.

The project involving the setting up of an aircraft manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Keetmanshoop.
Responding to Tuesday’s article headlined ‘Investors lost interest in aircraft manufacturing plant’ published in The Namibian, former Keetmanshoop Urban regional councillor Frans Basson blamed the current Karas Regional Council for the lost opportunity.
He claimed the regional leaders had failed to lure the massive investment because they apparently had aborted consultations with a Russian company, MARS, which had expressed interest at the 2004 Karas Region investors’ conference to set up the assembly plant.
‘This stupidity resulted in many potential projects and job opportunities being washed down the drain,’ he charged.
‘It is just painful to note that research, planning and work performed by the former, first and second regional councils have been thrown out of the windows of stupidity by a visionless council whose aim is personal gain via politics of the belly,’ he added.
Rejecting claims that the council had aborted consultations with the investors, Karas Governor Dawid Boois said the project had stalled because the investors had ‘gone silent’ despite numerous efforts to keep consultations alive.
Questioning Basson’s silence on the issue for so long, Boois added that he could have raised the issue through structures such as development committees.
‘Instead, he [Basson] just disappeared from Karas,’ he remarked.
‘Isn’t it because he had no vision that he could not make another term in office as regional councillor?’ Boois asked.
He said the current council had achieved success in bringing much-needed socio-economic development to Karas compared to their predecessors.