PDM to wait longer for judgement on legal challenge of Russian’s farm deal

The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) will have to wait until 15 October to receive a judgement on an attempt to set aside the lease of four farms to a billionaire.

Russian billionaire Rashid Sardarov has acquired this 99-year lease of four farms in Namibia.

Judge Orben Sibeya on Thursday postponed the delivery of his judgement on the PDM’s application for a court order to set aside the transaction.

The judgement is now scheduled to be delivered on 15 October.

The PDM is trying to have a 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 four farms from the government.

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

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.

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.

Sibeya heard oral arguments on the PDM’s application in April this year.