The airport services company Menzies Aviation (Namibia) will be allowed to continue providing ground handling services at Hosea Kutako International Airport until Thursday this week.
This is in terms of an order given by judge Shafimana Ueitele after 22h00 on Monday evening in an urgent application by Menzies Aviation in the Windhoek High Court.
Menzies Aviation asked the court to suspend a previous High Court order that declared its contract to provide ground handling services at the airport terminated at the end of June last year. In the previous order, the court also directed that Menzies Aviation had to stop providing ground handling services at the airport and vacate the premises it was using at the airport.
After hearing oral arguments during Monday evening, Ueitele postponed the delivery of his judgement to Thursday and directed that until then the court order for Menzies Aviation’s eviction from the airport may not be carried out.
Menzies Aviation has continued to carry out ground handling operations at the airport after it lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgement in which it was declared that its ground handling services contract with the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) ended at the close of June last year.
The company lost its appeal against that judgement in the Supreme Court on Friday last week.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s judgement, the NAC stated that the company Paragon Investment Holdings would take over ground handling services at Hosea Kutako International Airport with effect from Tuesday.
The NAC awarded the contract to provide ground handling services at the airport to Paragon, in a joint venture with Ethiopian Airlines, in December 2021.
Menzies Aviation has been providing the services since 2014.
In its urgent application, Menzies Aviation claimed Namibia’s aviation industry “stands at the brink of disaster as a result of the NAC’s irresponsible and irrational conduct”.
The company, which is still challenging the award of the contract to Paragon in a review case that is pending in the High Court, also claims the award is a nullity, as it was done by the NAC instead of the Central Procurement Board of Namibia.
According to Menzies Aviation, the contract awarded to Paragon involves a financial value of more than N$25 million, which is the threshold above which the Central Procurement Board must consider tenders involving a state-owned enterprise like the NAC.
Menzies Aviation further alleged in its urgent application that the NAC gave it an unreasonably short period of four days to comply with a notice that Paragon would take over ground handling services at Hosea Kutako International Airport from Tuesday.
The company also claimed that Paragon does not have the capacity to carry out ground handling operations at the airport.
Paragon executive director Desmond Amunyela, in an affidavit filed at the court, charged that Menzies Aviation’s urgent application “is a complete abuse of the court’s process”.
The High Court and the Supreme Court have both ruled against Menzies Aviation, and the Supreme Court’s order is binding and final, Amunyela stated.
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