Chinese firm withdraws marine proposal

Chinese firm withdraws marine proposal Blames apartheid and 'white-skinned' Namibians In a strongly-worded statement the Beijing Ruier Animal Breeding and Promoting Company has blamed white-skinned Namibians of railroading their marine wildlife project. The Chinese company that planned to purchase wild-caught marine wildlife from Namibia has blamed the country's apartheid history and wealthy people with their “white skins” as some of the main obstacles it encountered and as the reasons for withdrawing its proposal.

The Beijing Ruier Animal Breeding and Promoting Company, based in China wrote a letter to the coastal weekly newspaper Namib Times yesterday, stating that it will no longer pursue the Namibian government's approval for the export of captured, live marine mammals from Namibian waters.

The company applied for a licence from the fisheries ministry to capture live dolphins, seals, whales, penguins and other marine creatures.

It, however, confirmed in the letter that it has withdrawn its request.

The company, which claims to own the now notorious vessel Ryazanovka, said through the vessel's master Ilya Sharapov that the negative publicity the project received is regrettable and that it was an investment opportunity worth N$100 million for Namibia.

While Namibian Sun has been reliably informed that there were processes launched to re-register the vessel, the most recent documents show that Ryazanovka is owned by Vasiliyev OA, based in Petropavlovsk, Russia, also the registered harbour for the vessel.

Beijing Ruier Animal Breeding and Promoting Company applied for a licence with a local partner company (Welwitschia Aquatic and Wildlife Scientific Research) to the fisheries ministry and the company says the purpose was to utilise these resources in a “sustainable manner”.

However, locals yesterday described the letter as insulting and an eye blinder.

“We don't believe the statement; it was issued by the captain of the vessel and not the Chinese representative who is a businessman in Namibia. Yesterday there were enquiries made to have repairs and maintenance done on the “Ryazanovka” and she is still attempting to be classed for registry. The statement borders on being rude,” a spokesperson of the Namibian Anti-Plunder Group said.

The permanent secretary in the fisheries ministry Moses Maurihungirire told Namibian Sun that he knows nothing of the company withdrawing its proposal and that it is still with the minister for consideration.

The Chinese-based company says that it was trying to “assist Namibia through diversification of economic activities to create more employment, wealth and income and prosperity for the people of the country to come out of the poverty trap which was caused by the historical injustices of the previous apartheid administration”.

However, it continued by saying that “there were objectors who were mostly wealthy people inside and outside Namibia whose countries supported apartheid in the past which led to the current economic oppression of thousands of Namibians, and some of those who because of their white skin directly benefitted from the discriminatory apartheid policies.”

The company says that these people's voices have been very strong and even “insulting, and claiming that the project is either criminal or have some underhanded objectives”.

“In Namibia, we together with our local partners made a transparent application to the ministry, which should have been handled through the normal procedures. How can investment come to Namibia when investor applications are leaked to the media even before the ministry has pronounced itself on the merits of the application, and some animal zealots start to denounce the application?”

The company further says that it is unfortunate that the ministry never afforded them an opportunity to state precisely what they planned to do.

It says that they planned to invest over N$100 million in Namibia in the beginning stages and expand this investment later to much more by building a state-of-the-art marine park at the Namibian coast which would have allowed Namibians to benefit from the presence of marine mammals.



ELLANIE SMIT