Local content is not a document for the base

RODNEY CLOETE WRITES:

Namibia’s Oil and Gas Local Content Policy is under review. On paper, the language, ownership thresholds, reporting requirements, beneficial ownership disclosures, and unbundling of contracts all look progressive. Openness on paper is a start. It is not enough.

This is a document written by those at the top of the pyramid and their networks. It is not a document for the base of the pyramid. 

Ordinary Namibians who want in as operators, not name-lenders, will find the barrier high and the rules opaque. Without real safeguards, the industry can create opportunities for the politically connected and the affluent at the expense of the poor.

Calling something “local content” does not remove the public interest. Access to oil and gas work packages, supply chains and equity has public value. Clear rules protect credible participants, give smaller firms confidence that opportunity is fair, and protect the Presidency and the responsible ministries from avoidable suspicion.

Policy alone does not position a population. Capability and capital do. Skills pipelines, practical training tied to actual work packages, local fabrication and service capacity, and financing that reaches beyond the usual networks remain underdeveloped. 

We are still far too focused on the language of participation and far too light on the substance. The industry will not wait for Namibia to get its house in order. Without deliberate, measurable investment in real Namibian competence, not just equity percentages and local content plans, the financial benefits will flow upward and outward.

I support a serious local-content regime. I make no allegation of impropriety against any named company. The government should finish the work the review implies: gazette the rules, name the owners, and put teeth on the page.

Four safeguards. Make beneficial ownership disclosure mandatory for companies and their local partners, including declared shareholding in every local partner. Publish eligibility criteria, decision authority and conflict-of-interest safeguards for any pre-approved supplier lists. Gazette the policy with monitoring and real penalties. Until then it remains a statement of intent, even with Cabinet endorsement. Invest measurably in skills, fabrication, service capacity and financing that reach beyond the usual networks, so ordinary Namibians enter as operators, not name-lenders.

Gazette it. Give it teeth.

* Rodney Cloete, MP shadow minister of international relations and trade, Independent Patriots for Change.

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