Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources are trying to understand why no one showed interest in the 11 090 tonnes of horse mackerel that was on auction to fund governmental objective activities.
The auction closed on 29 April.
This is the first time that no company or individuals showed interest in the auction.
Finance spokesperson Wilson Shikoto confirmed this to The Namibian.
“There was no subscription at the auction,” he said.
He added that an investigation will be instituted to figure out what went wrong.
Fisheries executive director Annely Haiphene was also perplexed by the situation.
“This has never happened before. We will have to sit down and understand what could have happened,” she said.
Haiphene could not shed more light on the matter because she is yet to receive official correspondence from the finance ministry.
Princess Fishing’s managing director Adolf Burger said they did not bid because they bought a lot of quotas from quota holders.
“We also cannot bid because we have a vessel that has been out of operation. I’m still waiting for a part from Norway before it can sail again,” he said.
Cavema Fishing’s director Robert Shimwooshili said the auction was done too late.
“Why can’t the ministries do the auction in January right after they have done the quota allocation in December? By the time they are done with the evaluation process, it will be winter. And as we speak, we are experiencing low catches,” he said.
Shimwooshili added that the ministries should also consider climate change that also affects good catches.
The government put the fish on auction to generate funds for government expenditures.
If all fish was sold in freezer form, the government could have made N$30 million at the set bidding price of N$3 000 per tonne.
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