{"id":24650,"date":"2022-07-11T12:25:11","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T12:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy"},"modified":"2022-07-11T12:45:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T12:45:19","slug":"open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to the Ministry of Mines and Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>WE ARE DISTURBED by and disappointed about the amount of time it takes for simple paperwork to be processed at the Ministry of Mines and Energy.<\/b><\/p>\n

Many people have had investment-ready projects held hostage by certain offices in the ministry.<\/p>\n

Why does it take so long? What is causing the bottleneck?<\/p>\n

Are there not enough workers to review applications for approval, which should take one hour at most?<\/p>\n

Are people sleeping on duty? Are those who are tasked with holding employees accountable also sleeping on duty?<\/p>\n

Are employees tired or bored with their duties? Do they not care?<\/p>\n

The employees we have dealt with are failing to voluntarily offer feedback on the progress of any application.<\/p>\n

They refuse to provide general expected time frames for the completion of document reviews.<\/p>\n

One has to phone and email, and when they do not respond, even travel all the way to the ministry just to enquire about the application progress, only to be received with an irritable attitude, and the seemingly memorised \u201cI cannot give an expected completion date\u201d.<\/p>\n

How is it conceivably possible that a civil servant who gets paid to perform certain duties does not have a general idea of how long a certain task takes to finalise?<\/p>\n

There are a multitude of fresh, ambitious, bright and energetic recent university graduates who are capable and desperately eager to work.<\/p>\n

Why are they not given some of these responsibilities, at least as assistants to the overpaid non-performing senior employees?<\/p>\n

Yet the minister speaks eagerly about selling mining exploration licences to the highest foreign bidders \u2013 a ploy which excludes locals.<\/p>\n

This is sadly taking the same trajectory as the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.<\/p>\n

The mines ministry has even recently gone as far as increasing both the exploration licence application fee, as well as the renewal fee.<\/p>\n

This is all in the spirit of justifying the inability of Namibian citizens to afford the application process, as well as the execution of exploration licences.<\/p>\n

Yet, when they bring investments to the table, they are ignored.<\/p>\n

How is it possible that the country’s economy was downgraded to junk status by both Moody and Fitch even before the Covid-19 pandemic?<\/p>\n

The government claims its coffers are empty and therefore incapable of meeting basic obligations, yet investment-ready projects sit idle on civil servants’ desks collecting dust.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the World Bank has downgraded Namibia’s Global Index of Ease of Doing Business from 108 to 104 out of 190 countries.<\/p>\n

Namibia also ranks ninth out of 10 sub-Saharan countries on business unfriendliness, with Malawi occupying the 10th position.<\/p>\n

These are not environments that are conducive to business operations, yet overseas trips are consistently undertaken to beg foreign investors to invest in Namibia, including recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Time is money and foreign investors have no interest, nor time to invest in suffocating bureaucracies.<\/p>\n

Why not save the funds wasted by travelling overseas and instead invest in putting electronic mechanisms in place to enhance the country’s ease of doing business?<\/p>\n

Smaller, non-resource-rich countries, such as Mauritius and Rwanda, lead the pack with regards to ease of doing business in Africa.<\/p>\n

Travel there instead and learn from them in an African context.<\/p>\n

Exploration licences in Namibia are granted for only a short time period before expiry, yet, for about a year they sit on various employees’ desks, wasting away.<\/p>\n

On paper, mining claims take six to 12 months to get feedback before one can start mining.<\/p>\n

Again, why so long for something so simple?<\/p>\n

In the meantime, investors lose appetite and move on to other less-developed African countries, where governments are more embracing and aggressively prioritise foreign investments and document processes.<\/p>\n

Sadly, exploration licence holders end up losing their licences as expiration dates speedily approach \u2013 especially during these last two unprecedented years of lockdowns and travel restrictions.<\/p>\n

This is a fact we hope the ministry takes into account to extend licence-renewal dates.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the country’s citizens and its gross domestic product continue to suffer.<\/p>\n

When will Namibian leaders awaken to this self-inflicted negligence?<\/p>\n

Working for the government seems to be like an endless holiday, where employees roam the streets during working hours, while their duties remain unperformed.<\/p>\n

As one of the last of the world’s nations to have garnered independence, why have our leaders refused to acquire wisdom from others’ mistakes?<\/p>\n

Namibia has all we need.<\/p>\n

Let’s enhance our operations and stop this begging attitude from those we allow to steal our riches.<\/p>\n

How can the rich consistently beg from the poor?<\/p>\n

Namibia has been endowed with so many positive attributes.<\/p>\n

We call upon the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the government as a whole to capitalise on those attributes by being vigilant in performing the duties they have been entrusted with.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. WE ARE DISTURBED by and disappointed about the amount of time it takes for simple paperwork to be processed at the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Many people have had investment-ready projects held hostage by certain offices in the ministry. Why does it take so long? What is causing the bottleneck? Are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":24649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-24650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nOpen Letter to the Ministry of Mines and Energy - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WE ARE DISTURBED by and disappointed about the amount of time it takes for simple paperwork to be processed at the Mi ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Open Letter to the Ministry of Mines and Energy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WE ARE DISTURBED by and disappointed about the amount of time it takes for simple paperwork to be processed at the Mi ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-11T12:25:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-11T12:45:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/07\/postQueueImg_21-62cc1b45ad377.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Open Letter to the Ministry of Mines and Energy\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-11T12:25:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-11T12:45:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\"},\"wordCount\":822,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/07\/postQueueImg_21-62cc1b45ad377.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/open-letter-to-the-ministry-of-mines-and-energy\",\"name\":\"Open Letter to the Ministry of Mines and Energy - 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