The state-owned enterprise, Namibia Industrial Development Agency (NIDA) has called for the speedy gazetting of asset transfers from businesses merged and dissolved to form the agency.
The Namibia Development Corporation and the Offshore Development Company were merged and dissolved to form NIDA.
The call for the speedy asset transfer process was made during the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Economy's follow-up oversight to Naute Irrigation Farm.
The farm, with a market value of N$233 million managed by NIDA, which produces 400 tonnes of grapes and 332 dates for export markets, is located near Keetmanshoop.
It employs 51 permanent workers and more than 300 seasonal workers.
NIDA's Chief Regional Officer Julius Nghikevali explained that there is currently a lot of disruption in the organisation.
"This is the fact that the organisation is not fully funded and capitalised and also its assets that it is legally entitled to. Those assets are still legally sitting in the older organisation, which shouldn't exist. Those organisation should be terminated by an Act of Parliament."
The follow-up oversight visit aimed to assess progress in implementing the committee's recommendations.
The recommendations include independent marketing of the farm's produce, increase of the petty cash allocation, opening a bank with signatory rights to the farm management, and construction of septic tanks.
The committee's chairperson Eddie |Nanub expressed satisfaction with the progress reported on the recommendation's implementation
"We will follow-up again just to see whether they will deliver what they have said, but we are very much satisfied with the management's responses."
It transpired that NIDA entered into a partnership agreement to operate the Naute Farm with Fekri and Sons Trading, which is involved in the packaging, export, and transportation of fruits and vegetables.
It further emerged that this agreement was sealed without the knowledge of the Ministry of Industries, Mines, and Energy.
This did not go down well with committee members, who called for greater coordination and collaboration between NIDA and the line ministry.