Economist says no plan can revive Air Namibia amid Swapo’s promise of airline’s return

Economist Omu Kakujaha-Matundu says no business plan or model would successfully bring back the now defunct Air Namibia from the grave.

“We can’t go back there,” he said yesterday when responding to revelations by Swapo vice president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah over the weekend that the party is planning to revive the national airline.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said this during the official launch of Swapo’s manifesto.

“No business plan or model would successfully bring back Air Namibia from the grave. Let’s swallow our pride of not flying the Namibian flag on the tail of a bottomless pit. “We can use those funds for other high-yielding projects,” Kakujaha-Matundu said.

“A national airline is sometimes a nice-to-have but not a necessity. Airlines are not money spinners. We have seen giant airlines collapsing.

“In the case of Air Namibia, flying the national flag drained the fiscus of billions in bailouts. Should Namibia want to invest in the airline business, a completely new model is needed, such as buying stakes in profitable airlines.

“Once bitten twice shy,” he said.

The 74-year-old airline has been shut down for almost four years now, yet some of its former workers have not received their severance packages.

Former Air Namibia employees representative Renier Bougard says politicians are not leaders.

“They will say anything to get votes. We have approached Nandi-Ndaitwah’s office to help us, but they could not help us. The Air Namibia money is money people have worked for and people are dying, but nobody is talking about people losing their lives to suicide.

“We have gone to our leaders to ask for assistance, but they did not help us, now they want to tell people that will clap hands for them that they will get the airline. Why did they not revive it in the last three years?” he said.

“Instead they are buying 2,6 million cars for the leadership and then they go and ask for drought relief from the international communities. They think we are jokes. How can you buy cars, but the country does not have money for food?”

Nandi-Ndaitwah said the party would also upgrade Hosea Kutako International Airport, as well as the Katima Mulilo and Rundu airports, and conduct a feasibility study for the upgrading of the Keetmanshoop and Lüderitz airports.

In 2021, former president Hage Geingob said the decision to liquidate Air Namibia was a collective Cabinet decision, which was reaffirmed despite calls by unions and civil society organisations for the government to rather restructure it.