Justicia Shipena
National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) interim managing director Maureen Hinda-Mbuende says corruption in the extractive sector is mostly driven by the private sector, not the government.
She warned that failing to address this could threaten Namibia’s future oil and gas development.
Hinda-Mbuende made the remarks in Windhoek on Thursday during a high-level dialogue on Namibia’s possible participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
She said corruption in extractive industries often begins in the private sector, where most beneficiation takes place, yet public debate and reporting tend to place the burden on government alone.
“It is important to understand that even in the aspects of corruption, 99% of it is the private sector initiated, because the beneficiation goes to the private sector. It disadvantages the public sector, but that is not coming through in our reporting,” Hinda-Mbuende said.
She said Namibia’s approach to oil and gas development must rest on environmental sustainability and inclusive systems that allow the country to gain real value from its resources.
She said cooperation between the public and private sectors is essential if oil benefits the country.
“We are also of the opinion that oil shouldn’t be a curse for Namibia. And it can only not be a curse if the private sector and the public sector hold hands,” she said.
Hinda-Mbuende warned that weak definitions, poor oversight and continued blame-shifting could deepen inequality and increase social pressure. She said when governments grow poorer while social expectations rise, unrest follows.
“We cannot underestimate the impact that these things have. Otherwise we will keep talking and criticising, governments will get poorer, and the social demands will get higher. And that is what brings about social unrest, because it threatens peace and stability,” she said.
The dialogue took place under the Eco Dialogue Collective, a joint initiative of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), the Namibia Media Trust (NMT) and DW Akademie, with support from the European Union (EU).
The discussion examined how the EITI works and whether Namibia should join the global transparency standard, which promotes public disclosure across the mining, oil and gas value chain.
This includes licences, contracts, production data, revenues and how income from natural resources is managed and shared.
Accountability decisions
At the same dialogue, IPPR executive director Graham Hopwood said accountability decisions are urgent if Namibia is to avoid corruption and misuse of its natural resources.
Hopwood said oil and gas discoveries since 2022 place the country on a path toward upstream production in the coming years.
“We know that we have oil and gas, and increasingly it does look like we are heading towards oil and gas upstream production in the next few years,” he said.
He said timelines remain uncertain, but decisions on development appear close.
“The dates might still move around a bit, but it looks increasingly like some decisions will be taken in the next year or so,” Hopwood said.
Hopwood said oil and gas development has often been linked to corruption and misuse of resources in many countries, including in Africa, and warned Namibia not to repeat those patterns.
“Oil and gas, unfortunately, are synonymous with corruption in Africa, but also in other countries around the world. Namibia has to make an exception to what could be seen as the norm,” he said.
He said Namibia has the political system and institutions needed to ensure natural resources benefit citizens rather than elites.
“We have the ability, and we have the capability to have a kind of democracy that would enable us to actually make the most of our resources for the people of Namibia and not fall into the traps that other countries have fallen into,” Hopwood said.
He said key decisions, especially in the energy sector, must be taken soon and must prioritise transparency and accountability.
“We have to make key decisions, and many of those decisions, particularly in the areas of energy, come down to accountability and have to be made in the near future,” he said.
The EITI is a global standard aimed at improving how countries manage oil, gas and mineral resources, based on the principle that natural resources belong to citizens.
It requires public disclosure of information across the extractive value chain, from licences and contracts to production, revenues and how income is spent.
Globally, 55 countries implement the EITI Standard. About 3.5 billion people live in countries rich in oil, gas or minerals.
Since the initiative began, more than US$3.1 trillion in extractive revenues has been disclosed through EITI reporting, covering about 671 financial years. About 90% of EITI data is publicly available in open data format.
