President Nangolo Mbumba said Namibians own the country’s natural resources, not anyone from abroad.
Mbumba told the Swanu party leadership at State House that the country should start focusing on how to get the necessary equipment to turn natural resources into finished products.
Swanu is Namibia’s oldest political party, founded on September 27, 1959.
Mbumba, however, hastened to say that even though the resources belong to Namibians, the country needs to secure funds to turn those resources into finished products to benefit the nation.
“We need financial resources. We need technology and management to ensure our processing is of good standards.
“Resources are ours but we need to go with whom people who we work with to succeed,” Mbumba said.
Mbumba said Namibia needs to start training young people to take over opportunities in the natural resources sector.
“Let us train our young people. We must train them on how to be able to deal with those oil and gas resources.
“The resources are ours, but we need capital, and we have the responsibility to choose whom to work with because it is our resources,” Mbumba said.
The Swanu president, former labour unionist Evilastus Kaaronda, said if the country truly owned the resources, then Namibia would not be complaining about informal settlements, and our resources would be used to build houses and improve infrastructure.
“We have informal settlements that are kept in the country, and I believe that if we are to use our resources well, then we will be not talking of settlements problems”, Kaaronda said.
Kaaronda added that after 34 years of independence, Namibia’s economy is still inaccessible to farmers north of the redline.
Kaaronda said the redline should be removed to allow trade in the country.
