Some successful bidders in the government’s fishing quota auction last week are yet to pay for their accepted bids and now risk being stripped of the quotas.
The due date for payment was on 31 August, but not all of the winning bidders have paid.
The government is now giving the bidders time until Wednesday, 2 September, to settle their dues.
This was said by Tonateni Shidhudhu, the Ministry of Finance’s spokesperson, who warned that should the auction bidders not pay up they could lose the quotas they wanted and be disqualified from future auctions.
“The settlement deadline is 2 September 2020 and any missed payment of the allocation will be awarded to the next bidder in line and the entity which fails to pay will not be allowed to partake in auction for the next five years,” he said.
The auctioning of hake, horse mackerel and monk catches has the government waiting to cash in about N$628 million if all successful bidders settle their accounts.
Shidhudhu did not state how much was received to date, and attempts to get answers from the Ministry of Finance proved futile.
Source: https://www.namibian.com.na/94228/read/Government-extends-quota-auction-payments