Office extract for citation on panduleniitula.com (draft). Ligature and line-break cleanup only. Media-inquiry footers and party profile copy from the PDF are not reprinted. Some office PDFs print Independence Patriots or Leader of the Official Opposition; this site keeps Independent Patriots for Change and does not treat the opposition-leader heading as a finding. This extract is the office wording, not a finding of this site.

Filename as supplied: PRESS STATEMENT_PRESIDENT_NAMIBAAIR.pdf
22 July 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PUBLISH THE STUDY BEFORE THE LICENCE: NAMIBIA AIR'S N$600
MILLION ASK RESTS ON SECRETS

1. Namibia Air is not an airline; it is an application. What
government published in the Government Gazette of 8 July
2026 under the Air Services Act is a request to operate seven
Embraer jets at an estimated US$36 million (about N$600
million), 160 flights a week rising to 210 by year four, and a
claimed market of 800,000 passengers across domestic and
intra-African routes.

2. The the notice gives interested parties 21 days from publication
to object before the Transport Commission decides. That
window closes within days, Yet, the feasibility study government
says is complete remains unpublished. The public is being asked
to underwrite an airline on trust.

3. The gazetted numbers cannot reconcile themselves. At 160
flights a week, carrying 800,000 passengers a year would require
96 passengers on every single flight, on a fleet whose largest
aircraft seats at most 88 and whose workhorse ERJ-145 seats 50.

4. Either the 800,000 is not a traffic plan at all, or the fleet cannot
carry it, and the only document that can reconcile the two is the
study government will not publish.

5. The instability runs deeper, in November 2025 the Minister of
Works and Transport said government had not yet decided
whether to buy or lease aircraft and was still finalising the market
analysis and business model.

6. Eight months later, the Gazette, prices a seven-jet acquisition at
prices that buy second-hand airframes, not new jets, while the
model is apparently still under review. Locking in metal before
the model is how state airlines are built to fail.

7. Namibia has paid this tuition before, Reuters reported in 2021
that government had spent more than N$8 billion on Air
Namibia; at liquidation, the airline held about N$1.04 billion in
assets against nearly N$5.4 billion in liabilities.

8. The IMF's 2025 Article IV consultation urged Namibia toward
fiscal discipline and state-owned enterprise reform, not a new
100% state-owned carrier in the industry with the thinnest
margins on the continent, where FlyNamibia reports that 67% of
its operating costs sit beyond its control.

9. A state-owned badge does not turn jet fuel into spring water
and the same Minister who gave FlyNamibia six months to cut
its Ondangwa fares, under threat of state price regulation, is now
the sponsor of its state-funded competitor.

10.  The opportunity cost is on every till slip. Fuel rose by N$2.50 and
N$4.00 a litre in April and diesel by another N$4.63 in May, with
the National Energy Fund committing about N$1.3 billion to
absorb under-recoveries in two months.

11. The electricity bulk tariff rises again on 1 August, softened by a
subsidy of just N$90 million; the Road Fund Administration warns
that road maintenance is underfunded.

12. Meanwhile, Namibia's air connectivity is already growing
without the state owning a single aircraft, through Air Connect
Namibia and route partnerships, international destinations are
set to rise from 10 in 2023 to 17 by mid-2026, with more than
120,000 new international seats.

13. The state is succeeding as matchmaker. It does not need to
become the groom, the band, and the bill payer.

14. The pensioner in Khorixas whose N$100 token buys as little as 31
units of electricity should not be asked to bankroll an airline to
Lusaka.

15. "Air Namibia did not collapse because Namibians dislike flying.
It collapsed because the numbers stopped flying long before
the planes did. Publish the report of the feasibility study.

IPC therefore calls on the:

§ The Minister of Works and Transport must table in the National
Assembly, the complete Namibia Air feasibility study and
business model, together with the route-by-route demand,
market-share, load-factor and fleet-utilisation assumptions
behind the 800,000-passenger claim, before the Transport
Commission decides the applications.

§ The Minister of Finance and Social Grants Management must
publish the full taxpayer exposure of the venture, equity, debt,
aircraft leases, guarantees and projected operating subsidies
before any public funds are committed.

§ IPC will file representations opposing the applications with the
Transport Commission within the statutory 21-day objection
window, and calls on affected operators, airports, consumer
bodies and citizens to exercise the same right before it lapses.

§ Should any Appropriation or Additional Appropriation Bill carry
an allocation for Namibia Air before these conditions are met,
IPC will move to seek remedy from an appropriate forum.

Namibia is all we have.
Namibia is not for sale.
We must and can save it.

ISSUED BY:
PANDULENI ITULA (DR.)
PRESIDENT – INDEPENDENCE PATRIOTS FOR CHANGE (IPC)

— END—