A regulator without a minister

RODNEY CLOETE WRITES:

Local content will not fail for lack of a policy title. It will fail if nobody who answers to Parliament holds the pen when the contracts start.

Cabinet approved the National Upstream Petroleum Local Content Policy on 4 August 2026. That approval was announced by Cabinet spokesperson Emma Theofelus. The Namibian later reported that the Presidency has appointed the Upstream Petroleum Unit (UPU) as the local content regulator. The unit is headed by Kornelia Shilunga. Section 7.1 of the policy, as reported, tasks the UPU to coordinate, implement, monitor and enforce the local content requirements, including compliance, reporting and regulatory oversight.

That is a sharp change from the March 2025 draft. That earlier version gave those same powers to the Ministry of Industrialisation, Mines and Energy. The March draft also promised that the ministry would cause the establishment of an autonomous industry regulatory authority to take over the Local Content Division. The new draft removes that division from the same framing. Its establishment still appears as an action-plan outcome. Paper promises are not the same as a living regulator.

There is a harder problem. The UPU was established by the petroleum amendment bill. That bill has not yet passed Parliament. So we have a policy approved, a unit named as regulator, and a legal foundation that is still incomplete. Parliamentarians have already raised concerns about moving powers from the energy ministry into the Presidency. The concern is not abstract. It is about whether the House can still ask hard questions about a national resource.

Graham Hopwood of the Institute for Public Policy Research put it plainly. Transparency depends on accountability mechanisms. One example he gave is a minister responsible for petroleum affairs who can report to Parliament. Marius Kudumo warned that settling who regulates local content is premature while petroleum-in-the-Presidency remains unsettled. He said operational matters put that office in the firing line. Both points matter before first oil contracts lock in.

I speak as Shadow Minister of International Relations and Trade. Trade and investment partners will ask who enforces local content, on what legal footing, and under what oversight. Investors can live with firm rules. They cannot live with a gap between a policy document and a regulator that Parliament cannot interrogate.

Namibia needs local content with teeth. Teeth require a clear statute, a clear reporting line, and a clear path for parliamentary scrutiny. Until the bill is passed and the accountability question is settled, the regulator sits on uncertain ground.

A regulator that cannot answer Parliament is not a regulator.

* Rodney Cloete is a member of parliament and shadow minister of international relations and trade, Independent Patriots for Change (IPC).

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