Learn the oil trade, Alweendo urges

Mines minister Tom Alweendo says Namibians will not reap the benefits of the country's newly discovered oil resources if they do not actively participate in providing local goods and services through the local content policy government is currently finalising.

He made the comments during a consultative meeting with the Namibia Local Business Association (Naloba). The business lobby group told Alweendo that Namibians should be entitled to at least a 50% shareholding in the newly discovered petroleum exploration licences (PEL) -owned by oil majors TotalEnergies and Shell, among others.

“If we are going to sit around and say 'I am a Namibian, I must just get it' but I am not doing anything to ready myself to be able to provide this service, other people will do it,” Alweendo told the Naloba delegation, led by its vice-president Kanu Amadhila.

Alweendo urged Naloba to encourage its members to actively participate on platforms where the local content policy was being discussed regarding oil and gas.

“Guys, we need to follow these discussions. We need to ask questions so that when you need to team up with other companies, you also have something to offer,” the minister said.

Entitlement

“If you do not have anything, the international companies are quite happy to have Namibians who do not understand and they will pay you the money, but you are not actually learning about the business,” he added.

Active participation would also ensure that Namibian companies are not used as business fronts, but actually benefit from local value addition initiatives.

“All I have been saying is let's be clear so that we follow these things, so that we are not used by international oil companies as fronts to say 'hey, I’ve got a local person', but that local person is not doing anything,” Alweendo said.

The business lobby group recently blasted the minister over comments he made regarding Namibia’s oil and gas resources, when he said Namibians should not feel entitled to these resources.

"This statement is not only cursing, but threatening, unpatriotic, embarrassing and insulting to the entire Namibian nation. Before anything, every Namibian is entitled to their natural resources, and the provisions are made very clear in the laws of the republic. The above statement made by a leader trusted by the nation to protect them and their natural resources has exposed and embarrassed the Namibian people to foreign investors,” Naloba said in a statement recently.