Once enacted, an anticipated new business sector law will seek to foster transparency and a culture of sound corporate governance while further allowing for the use and application of new technologies to ease transactions and enhance the ease of foreign direct investment for economic growth.
This was revealed last week by the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA), together with the Ministry of Industrialization and Trade (MIT) who have since 2019, been working to reform the legislative framework for business entities in Namibia.
Last week, BIPA hosted an International Roundtable Consultative Forum under the theme ‘Namibian Corporate Laws for a Competitive, Trend-setting and Prosperous Economy’, aimed at bringing together local and international expert stakeholders from various fields including company and commercial law, tax and insolvency law, corporate governance, financial intelligence, economics etc.
“The reform of our laws are premised on that we wish to create a more modernized, responsive and simplified legal framework for the formalization and conduct of business entities in Namibia. The reforms are further aimed at improving the ease of doing business in the country and the level of competitiveness,” say Vivienne Katjiuongua, BIPA CEO.
Katjiuongua further noted that “key amendments include the addition of a chapter on Business Rescue, as per the recommendations of the Business Rescue Task Force appointed by His Excellency, the President in 2021. Another key consideration for inclusion is that of a Beneficial Ownership Register (BO). This is to ensure BIPA collects data on the actual beneficiaries of businesses and to root our conduct related to Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) and Counter Proliferation Financing (CPF)”. The review process includes countrywide stakeholder consultations and further engagement with local experts, before the draft bill can be presented to Cabinet and Parliament towards the later part of 2023.
The current laws regulating business registration and conduct, administered by BIPA includes the Companies Act, 2004 (Act No. 26 of 2004) and the Close Corporations Act, 1988 (Act No. 28 of 1988).
The review process includes countrywide stakeholder consultations and further engagement with local experts, before the draft bill can be presented to Cabinet and Parliament towards the later part of 2023.
Tshepo Mongalo, a South African Professor in Law has been appointed as the lead consultant for the reform project. He currently serves as the Associate Professor in Commercial Law at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS). Professor Mongalo also served as Deputy Chair of the Specialist Committee on Company Law in South Africa and was instrumental in the review and subsequent amendment of the 2008 South African Companies Act. He will be assisted by expert consultants from the United States and the UK. The experts have a wealth of experience specializing in mergers and acquisitions, securities and corporate transactions, capital markets and private equity, corporate law amongst others.
“The Ministry of Industrialization and Trade together with its various stakeholder and partners have done various assessments of the Namibian economy and have engaged the business fraternity at length over the past 3-4 years. It is my belief that we are ad idem on the fact that the business and investment sector require a push in the right direction in order to yield the required results for a prosperous economic trajectory now and in the future,” stated Lucia Iipumbu, Minister for Industrialization and Trade.