Mines minister Tom Alweendo says some mining companies are still exporting raw minerals months after he and President Hage Geingob said this should stop.
Alweendo announced that Namibia would not allow mines to export vast quantities of raw lithium ore, manganese, cobalt, rare earth elements and graphite on 8 June 2023.
Geingob also announced the same during the EU business summit in Brussels in October this year.
Additionally, the Cabinet approved that mining companies can only export small quantities with the minister’s approval.
However, Namibia did not make the ban on raw minerals export a law, resulting in some companies exploiting loopholes to circumvent the directive.
In early November, Swapo backbencher Natangwe Ithete told the National Assembly that if Geingob’s statement in Brussels were not formulated into a policy, it would remain a statement.
Alweendo told Cabinet on Wednesday that some mining companies were still not complying with the directive, which took effect in June 2023.
“We still have those who are not happy with this stance, and they will try every trick in the book to export these minerals unprocessed, but that is something we are working on to close all the loopholes,” Alweendo said.
The minister also said they were working on closing the loopholes within the laws so that Namibia’s minerals would mean more to the people.
He further said it would not be right that minerals are exported in raw form when Namibia can do better by adding value.
“These raw minerals are critical for our industrialisation agenda. It is why we have taken a policy stance to say no critical raw minerals should be exported without value-addition,” Alweendo said.
