The Namibia Grape Company, located at Aussenkehr in southern Namibia, is now under the full custodianship of the National Youth Service. The official company handover took place on Friday at Aussenkehr; vice president Nangolo Mbumba officiated the event.
Mbumba said the change in ownership of the company was a cabinet decision which mandated the then Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to acquire full ownership of the Namibia Grape Company (NGC) on behalf of the government.
The intention was to transfer it to the National Youth Service (NYS) which is mandated to provide personal development and employment opportunities for the youth, he said.
The NGC was started in 1998 by a group of previously disadvantaged Namibians who secured funding from the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) to acquire 778,4 hectares of land. Ownership of the company was taken over by the GIPF and in 2007 the government bought the full shares.
NGC is one of the companies at Aussenkehr that exported over 30,000 tons of table grapes to major export markets such as the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, South Africa and the United States of America. The export value amounted to over N$800 million (€46 mln) last year.
Source: namibian.com.na