Hauwanga fails to stop N$137m bank auction

BusinessmanBen Hauwanga has failed with an attempt to stop a judicial auction resulting from a judgement for payment of N$137 million that a commercial bank obtained against him, his wife and some of his corporate entities. In an order delivered in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, judge Lotta Ambunda struck an application filed by Hauwanga at the start of last week from the court roll, based on a finding that the application did not meet the requirements to be heard as an urgent matter. Hauwanga, his wife, Mirjam Hauwanga, and three close corporations and two companies in his business conglomerate were the applicants in a case in which they were asking the court to order Bank Windhoek and the deputy sheriff of the High Court for the Oshana region not to proceed with a judicial auction of items belonging to them. The auction is scheduled to take place at Oshakati tomorrow.

Goods to be sold at the auction include six lorries, two tractors, workshop equipment, vehicle parts, tools and office furniture. The auction is being held in execution of a summary judgement for payment of N$137 million that was granted in the Windhoek High Court near the start of July this year against Hauwanga, his wife, the close corporations BH Spares and Accessories Equipment and Technologies, BH Properties, and Bennie’s Entertainment Park and Lodge, and the companies BH Construction and Mining Angola and Magnum Centre. In a sworn statement filed at the court last week, Hauwanga says the summary judgement was granted in his and the other applicants’ absence, after the law firm that had been representing them in a case that Bank Windhoek filed against them had withdrawn as their legal representatives. Hauwanga and the other applicants asked the court to put the judicial auction on hold until an…