LEGAL BATTLE TO RECOVER IMPOUNDED TANZANIA'S AIRBUS STARTED

By Our Correspondent, Johannesburg SOUTH AFRICA.

A team of lawyers dispatched by Tanzania government to contest a court order that led to seizure of Air Tanzania Corporation Limited plane has yesterday told the Gauteng court in Johannesburg that the order to impound the plane was wrongly granted.

Tanzania government legal team

"We have shown that the order to seize Air Tanzania's Airbus A220-300 was wrongly granted against the government of Tanzania and that it should be lifted". Said advocate Ngcukaitobi representing Tanzania government.

On his part, the advocate representing Herman Steyn in the case, Roger Wakefield, insisted that Prima facie case exists and that the trial court should determine the merits of the case and prospects of success.

According to Steyn's lawyer, the test for a Prima facie have been satified.

The Air Tanzania aircraft was seized at Oliver Tambo International Airport, following the order granted by the High Court in Johannesburg at the end of last week, after it landed in South Africa during a scheduled flight from Tanzania’s economic capital Dar es Salaam. 

The court order was granted after the Tanzanian government refused to pay a Namibian-born farmer the full $33 million (about R509 million) compensation he is owed after his farm in Tanzania was nationalised decades ago by the Tanzanian government.

The privately-owned bean and seed farm, including equipment, 250 cars and 12 small planes, was seized by the Tanzanian authorities in the 1980s. 

The farmer was subsequently awarded $33 million in compensation in the 1990s. 

However, Tanzani government only paid out $20 million (R308 million) so with interest added there is now an outstanding balance of $16 million (R247 million) and after empty promises by Tanzania to pay the full amount owed the unnamed farmer decided to take further legal action leading to the plane’s seizure.