Frans Indongo

Indongo opened his first business, which made bricks, in the late 1950s. With the profits from that business, he bought sewing equipment for cloth making, which he sold in Oranjemund. In 1961, he opened a small shop in Omusimboti, Oshana which eventually allowed him to open a chain of supermarkets across the country. Indongo owns a large number of properties across Namibia, including locations in Swakopmund, Tsumeb, Walvis Bay, Otjiwarongo and Windhoek as well as holdings in the sugar and fishing industries.

Indongo entered politics in the 1970s as a leading member of the National Democratic Party, which became part of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance following the completion of the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference in 1977. At the Turnhalle Conference, Indongo was an important member of the Ovamboland delegation. He was Minister of Economic Affairs in the Owambo legislative assembly from 1975 and from 1980 a Minister in the Owambo Second Tier Representative Authority.[1] In 1982, he was a founding member of the Christian Democratic Action for Social Justice, led by Peter Kalangula. He resigned from politics in the late 1980s to manage his business affairs.

In 2001, Indongo received an honorary doctorate in business administration from the University of Namibia. In 2003, a street was named after him in downtown Windhoek. Indongo owns Etango Complex in Oshakati, one of the highest standard buildings in northern Namibia.

• Interview with Dr. Frans Indongo by Bertil Högberg on 15 June 2005 within the project Nordic Documentation on the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa