Task force must help firms avoid liquidation – Shiimi
OGONE TLHAGE
WINDHOEK
Finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi has welcomed the work of the Business Rescue Task Force, saying struggling business entities should not just be allowed to be liquidated, but rather that measures should be introduced to help them.
He made the comments when the task force shared its interim report with Cabinet during its last meeting of the year this month.
President Hage Geingob appointed the task force in June to assist ailing companies affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking after its chairperson Thinus Prinsloo made a presentation, Shiimi said the task force’s work would assist companies.
“The fact that companies only have the option to be liquidated is something that we need to address because companies need to survive and if we can find a way of making companies survive before they are dead, I think that is something that is going to help us,” he said.
According to him, in many important economies, these instruments are present.
Stigma
Shiimi also touched on the stigma of serving on the boards of liquidated companies.
“In Namibia, if you are liquidated, you are even labelled, even as a director you can’t serve on other companies because you were serving on a company that was liquidated, so it carries a stigma,” he said.
Debt-laden Air Namibia, which had been struggling even before Covid-19, was placed into voluntary liquidation this year. This while Namibia’s oldest department store Wecke & Voigts announced it would close its doors after operating for 75 years, Reuters reported.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism and hospitality sectors are also buckling under pressure due pandemic restrictions.
Namibia’s economy contracted by 6.5% in the first quarter of this year, plunging deeper into recession.
WINDHOEK
Finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi has welcomed the work of the Business Rescue Task Force, saying struggling business entities should not just be allowed to be liquidated, but rather that measures should be introduced to help them.
He made the comments when the task force shared its interim report with Cabinet during its last meeting of the year this month.
President Hage Geingob appointed the task force in June to assist ailing companies affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking after its chairperson Thinus Prinsloo made a presentation, Shiimi said the task force’s work would assist companies.
“The fact that companies only have the option to be liquidated is something that we need to address because companies need to survive and if we can find a way of making companies survive before they are dead, I think that is something that is going to help us,” he said.
According to him, in many important economies, these instruments are present.
Stigma
Shiimi also touched on the stigma of serving on the boards of liquidated companies.
“In Namibia, if you are liquidated, you are even labelled, even as a director you can’t serve on other companies because you were serving on a company that was liquidated, so it carries a stigma,” he said.
Debt-laden Air Namibia, which had been struggling even before Covid-19, was placed into voluntary liquidation this year. This while Namibia’s oldest department store Wecke & Voigts announced it would close its doors after operating for 75 years, Reuters reported.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism and hospitality sectors are also buckling under pressure due pandemic restrictions.
Namibia’s economy contracted by 6.5% in the first quarter of this year, plunging deeper into recession.
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