Africa-Press – Namibia. MINERAL DEPOSITS naturally occur in solid, liquid, or gaseous material and their conversion into useful materials or items are profitable.
They are categorised into three classes: Fuel, metallic and non-metallic. Fuel minerals like coal, crude oil and natural gas account for nearly 87% of the value of mineral production, while metallic and non-metallics constitute 6% to 7%.
Namibia has huge mineral resources most of which are market-centric, meaning they are sought after globally.
Namibia is the fourth largest exporter of non-fuel minerals in Africa, and has diamonds, uranium, copper, magnesium, zinc, silver, gold, lead, semi-precious stones and industrial minerals.
Who says Namibia cannot attain number one exporter status?
UTILISATION AND STRATEGIC RELEVANCE
So, think of this: “Namibia possesses what powerful lead technology movers need to remain relevant in the market.”
These include aerospace, computers and office machinery, electronics and communications equipment, pharmaceuticals and advanced military weapons systems industries.
The country’s uranium constitutes what powerful nations need for affirming military and weapons superiority.
This holds strategic relevance for Namibia now and in the near future. Thus, with these market-centric minerals, the Namibia of today and tomorrow has no business borrowing from China or any other country as other African states do!
Benefiting from this, however, calls for a new minerals development and utilisation strategy in the form of an effective Namibia minerals development and utilisation monitoring and evaluation (M&E)-based ecosystem; one created with a foundation of technology support and which would allow easy monitoring by the government and its justice and law enforcement arms (also housed as part of this ecosystem).
This would audit what goes on in the sector.
In sustaining this M&E-based ecosystem, Namibia would have to keep in mind and learn from countries like the Congo and Nigeria.
Though they possess huge key market-centric minerals like diamonds, crude oil and natural gas, these countries are still oscillating between underdevelopment and what seems to be steady competition to becoming pre-Newtonian societies and failed states.
Avoiding this will entail radical institutional reforms and uprooting hidden extractive colonial systems left by former colonialists, which continue to even make honest systems and efforts unworkable.
AFRICA FIRST
African states must have inalienable beliefs (unequivocally reflective in research, education, governance, trade, diplomacy and contracts), that their natural resources and technologies need to benefit Africa first, before others.
Our decolonisation efforts and products need to also unapologetically affirm and reflect this.
Therefore, the institutions meant for coordinating Namibia’s minerals development and utilisation must align to its culture and philosophy and a different way of managing it.
Our African cultures and philosophies possess universally proven tenets in good business management, namely: structure, accountability, multi-lateralism, selflessness, sustainability, correctness and competition.
Only through this will we be able to eradicate our wicked problems – problems considered wicked not from a moral point of view, but those that seem insurmountable which indeed are not, but seem to be because we still do not have a trans-disciplinary approach to probing and solving them.
One such approach is taking the bold step of reforming the institutions we run in Africa, a case I made as a guest lecturer at the just-concluded Africa Economic Leadership Council Discover Namibia Intra-Africa Business Summit at Swakopmund at the end of last month..
THE WAY FORWARD
The way forward will require Namibia to subsidise its minerals sector, opening it up more to allow the participation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
If foreign direct investments are involved, the contracts must align to a balanced sharing scale where Namibia should never be seen to lose.
The entry of SMEs into the sector must be accompanied by an SME entrepreneurial entrants training programme that would train, qualify and accompany entrants into the Namibian minerals development and utilisation sector.
Mining licences are not enough.
Requisite infrastructure and capacity, which should make possible on-the-ground processing of excavated mineral resources on Namibian soil and eradicate the Chinese ‘I carry away all’ system, has to be put in place.
In this way, the Namibian people can benefit from the employment and training benefits of such initial production-phase activity and check the theft of minerals not included in signed deals but taken away through the back door.
The process would drastically reduce unemployment and underemployment rates, especially among young people, and would limit Namibia’s susceptibility to shocks associated with the still unstable Africa labour market.
Increased spending in research and development has to be made to build the capacity that would help Namibia determine its minerals, still considered latent, and identify their uses for solving problems and becoming a national security asset when exported.
The focus of the Namibian tourism development plan and the Namibian Tourism Board, as deliverer of this policy, should evolve from just marketing or showcasing the beauty of Namibia to marketing the country’s mineral resources with the aim of wooing foreign investors.
This would create a sustainable system for supporting Namibia’s economic take-off.
*Ndubuisi Idejiora-Kalu is a strategist, researcher and adviser on various aspects of national security, strategy and international relations. He is director general of the Abuja- based International Law, Diplomacy and Economy Research Centre, and the author of ‘Strategy’; [email protected]
For More News And Analysis About Namibia Follow Africa-Press
