*Ex-Minister’s company stripped of multi-million pula hunting deal
A high-stakes legal battle over the lucrative NG13 hunting concession in the Okavango area has taken a dramatic turn, with a company linked to former Justice Minister Machana Shamukuni, who is also former Member of Parliament for Chobe, being declared a legal “non-entity” by the court.
The ruling by a Maun High Court has effectively set aside an earlier court order that had allowed the company, DK Superior (Pty) Ltd, to continue hunting operations in the disputed concession.
The case involves DK Superior (PTY) LTD, whose Managing Director is listed in court papers as Shamukuni, and a challenge brought by Oldman’s Pan (Pty) Ltd and the Tcheku Development Trust. Tcheku, which manages NG13 under the government’s Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme.
Despite an existing Court of Appeal order delivered on August 15, 2025, which Oldman’s Pan says interdicts all hunting in the area, the Trust subleased the concession to DK Superior in November 2024 for the 2025 hunting season. DK subsequently purchased the quota for P1.5 million in July 2025.
The situation escalated when the Director of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) issued a directive on September 4, 2025, ordering all licensing officers not to issue hunting permits for NG13, citing the Court of Appeal’s interdict.
In response, DK Superior filed an urgent application before Maun High Court seeking to review and set aside the DWNP’s directive. On September 12, 2025, the court initially granted DK the order, reviewing and setting aside the DWNP’s decision and directing the immediate issuance of permits to the company.
This initial victory was short-lived as Oldman’s Pan and the Tcheku Development Trust immediately applied to join the case, arguing that DK had misled the court by failing to serve notice on parties directly affected by the Court of Appeal’s interdict.
The cornerstone of the challenge was the legitimacy of DK Superior itself. Oldman’s Pan argued that DK was not a registered company, describing it as a “non-entity” with “no legal standing” and warned that allowing it to operate would amount to “perpetration of a clear fraud which the law cannot countenance.”
Following submissions last Friday, the court ruled in favour of Oldman’s Pan and the Trust. The court set aside its own order issued on September 12, 2025, and joined Oldman’s Pan and the Trust as third and fourth respondents to the main application which is yet to be heard before the same court.
The main application is set to return to court for hearing on November 12, 2025.
However in his founding affidavit, Shamukuni has emphasized the extreme urgency of the matter, noting that four international clients from the United States of America were already in camp in NG 13 awaiting permits to hunt.
Species in the allowed quota include 10 elephants, 2 leopards, 5 buffaloes, 5 steenboks, 7 wildebeests, 6 zebras, 5 warthogs, 5 baboons, 2 duikers, 3 elands and 2 ostriches.
Shamukuni warned that if the matter was not heard urgently, DK Superior risked “extreme financial loss” given the short window remaining in the 2025 hunting season, which ends in October 2025.
He stated the company faced “significant loss of profit” and potential damages to clients due to failure to perform contractual obligations.
