NAMIBIA Airports Company chief executive officer Bisey /Uirab hand-picked a company to study the long-term renovation of Hosea Kutako International Airport.
That renovation is linked to the N$7 billion airport upgrade tender that was cancelled by president Hage Geingob four years ago for alleged corruption and kickbacks.
The proposed changes are not linked to the N$250 million upgrades which began two months ago.
Even though the cost of the long-term upgrades is estimated to be around N$4 billion, the latest tender process appears to kick off on the wrong foot, like the previous one.
/Uirab wrote to finance minister Calle Schlettwein yesterday, informing him that they had hand-picked a company – without advertising – as a consultant to carry out the Hosea Kutako International Airport (HKIA) renovations’ feasibility study.
These are the same consultants who worked on the ongoing N$250 million short-term upgrades to the airport.
“NAC went on to appoint the consultants currently engaged with the Hosea Kutako congestion alleviation project, led by Lithon Consulting Engineers,” /Uirab said.
This, he added, was done after a 6 August 2019 meeting between finance, transport and NAC officials.
“It was agreed, in light of the need to expedite the development of the long-term feasibility study at Hosea Kutako International Airport, that the Namibia Airports Company would proceed to make use of the current consultants on the HKIA short-term project to assist with the feasibility study,” /Uirab wrote.
NAC officials have over the years used urgency to push through dubious tenders, including the N$250 million airport tender in which companies were hand-picked.
/Uirab told Schlettwein that they hand-picked the consultants due to the urgency to conclude the feasibility study by the end of this month.
“The consultants’ intimate knowledge of the airport, emanating from their current involvement with the short-term congestion alleviation project, had influenced their appointment,” he said, adding that they understand the terminal’s needs from the work they had done on the airport in the past.
NAC sources said this tender could be the first step in the fight for the bigger tender, which is likely to be N$4 billion.
Sources questioned /Uirab’s decision to appoint Lithon Consulting Engineers.
“What terms of reference were used to appoint the consultants to do a feasibility study?” a person familiar with the matter asked.
Lithon has a history of winning multimillion-dollar works ministry tenders in the past, including the N$1,2 million study of the Ondangwa Airport renovations.
Lithon is co-owned by Adriaan Grobler, who is the founder and chairman; Tonata Itenge-Emvula, the former presidential adviser and ambassador; and Barnabas Uugwanga, who is the business development director.
Other owners of Lithon are managing director Frikkie Holtzhausen, and executive director Gert Maritz and Jannie Grobler.
/Uirab denied any wrongdoing.
“This appointment was done through our internal procurement structures, as this appointment falls within our procurement threshold. Please note that the consultants are contracted to only do the feasibility study, and not the entire HKIA long-term development project itself,” he said.
He added that there is no truth to the allegations that the works ministry blocked him.
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