Russian billionaire keeps 99-year Namibia farm deal

A farm purchase and lease scheme through which Russian billionaire Rashid Sardarov gained control of more than 17 000 hectares of Namibian farmland for 99 years has withstood a legal challenge by the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM).

The scheme remains in place after judge Orben Sibeya dismissed an application by the PDM to set aside the lease of four farms to a company of Sardarov in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

Sibeya found that there is no legal prohibition of the lease of agricultural land to Sardarov’s company Comsar Properties SA with the consent of the minister of land reform and the government.

Noting that the PDM instituted its application against the minister of land reform, the government, the president, Comsar Properties and other respondents in the public interest, Sibeya decided not to order the party to pay the legal costs of the respondents in the matter.

“The applicant [PDM] does not appear to me to be a busybody that litigates left, right and centre,” Sibeya remarked.

“To the contrary […] the applicant instituted proceedings as a matter of public interest, on behalf of and for the benefit of the people,” he added.

The PDM tried to have a farm purchase, donation and 99-year lease agreement between the government, Comsar Properties, which is registered in Switzerland, and the former owners of four farms reviewed and set aside.

The four farms, with a combined size of 17 385 hectares, are situated east of Windhoek and north of Dordabis.

The PDM asked the High Court to review and set aside former land reform minister Utoni Nujoma’s decision in September 2018 to give permission for Comsar Properties to lease four farms from the government. The party also asked the court to review and set aside the government’s or Nujoma’s decision to lease the farms to Comsar Properties.

Alternatively, the party wanted 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 in September 2018 and then donated the farms to the government.

In return, the government agreed to, thereafter, lease the land to the company for 99 years.

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 PDM claimed the purchase of the farms and the leasing of the land to Sardarov’s company were part of a scheme devised to circumvent the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act, and that the land reform minister was not entitled to lease the farms to a foreigner for 99 years.

In his judgement, Sibeya said there was agreement between the parties in the case that Comsar Properties, as a foreign entity, is prohibited from acquiring agricultural commercial land in Namibia without a waiver issued by the minister responsible for land reform.

Sibeya stated: “Nothing, however, demonstrates that Comsar could not lease the farms with the consent of the minister and the government. In my view, the minister is authorised [in the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act] to consent to a lease of agricultural land.”

Sibeya also said he agreed with an argument that the leasing of the farms for a period of 99 years does not equate to ownership of the land.

The parties to the lease agreement intended to lease the farms and not to transfer ownership, and it was agreed that Comsar would pay the purchase price of the farms and develop the farms while the government, as registered owner of the farms, would be the ultimate beneficiary of acquiring the farms “without spending a penny”, Sibeya said.

Senior counsel Jean Marais, assisted by Yoleta Campbell, represented the PDM when Sibeya heard oral arguments in the matter in April and December last year.

Gerson Narib and Eva Shifotoka represented the minister of land reform and other governmental respondents, while senior counsel Wim Trengove, assisted by Ramon Maasdorp, represented Comsar Properties.

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