Tom Alweendo, mines minister
We need to develop local content that fits our purpose and reality. Therefore, we must understand where we are, where we want to go, and how that would work. Right now, that’s what we’re trying to do: understand what it will take to have adequate local content.
That will ensure that it can transform the economy quickly once it’s there. If we don’t do that correctly from the beginning, you may try to change every time because we have not spent enough time ensuring that the policy is for fitful purposes.
And that is what we are trying to do. And this, for me, is very critical.
We must ensure that all of us understand Namibian content and what role we can play in that level of content. It’s okay to go fast, but not too fast, because you will miss some steps and have a local content policy that does not give the results, and the consequence will be much more dire than taking a bit of time to ensure that you got it right from the beginning.
It would help if you had a healthy balance. It also says that we need to attract investors to the country. And we need not just any investor; we want savvy investors who understand what they are doing.
We are very pragmatic. We may not have all the right, exceptionally high-level skills in the oil and gas industry because this is new.
But we should not use that as an excuse for not starting to build those skills. Because if you look across the continent, we are also responsible for mining. Across the continent, we are constantly told that we don’t have skills; therefore, the investors will come with their skills and capital.
In the end, it didn’t have much impact on the continent simply because of the argument of not having skills.
We recognise that we lack those skills, but we need to devise a strategy with the investors to address how to correct the lack of skills in the countries.
And I also know that sometimes it also depends on where you are looking. I have also heard that Namibians need to gain skills in the oil and gas sector now and then. But for me, somehow, when I look for those skills, I tend to find them. So maybe also not looking in the right places where you can find those skills.
The answer is yes; we will start with an intensive training program to ensure that we fast-track the development of the skills we need. Yes, we will not demand that Namibians incapable of doing the work would do the job. Let’s identify what is required and do that together. And, at least with the investors in the industry we have now, we have had that discussion.
So if we do not have that, ten years later, 20 years later, and this is a long-term industry, 20 years later, you still have the same argument to say we cannot have Namibians in some of the critical positions or performing some of the services because they do not have the skills.
So it’s a collaboration effort that we have to make sure that at least we build those skills in the future.
I think the current thinking is that you will need specific skills in the industry. You’ll need some low-level and medium-level skills, and you’ll also have to have much higher-level skills.
The idea is that you need low-level and medium-level skills, primarily vocational ones.
To be able to fast track the development of those kind of skills, the idea is to say, why don’t we collaborate as government and as the industry to establish something that we can call something of a unique nature which is a specialised training institute or program or whatever you want to call it, but it’s something that is designed together with the sector because the sector will have better understanding of the kind of skills that will be needed, but the government and the industry will run it together.
That’s where we are going, thinking that you can fast-track the training instead of simply having the government have its training program or even every other company having their training.
You may also duplicate efforts, but if you get all this together, that will be the best way to train your skills. However, regarding the high level of the industry, we have high-learning institutions.
We have the University of Namibia and the University of Namibia Science and Technology. I would also encourage the industry to discuss necessary skills with the sponsoring institutions.
So, there are various models. I think one can do that, but that is something that, you know, right now, we are focusing on with the industry to make sure that, you know, again, we get the right formula to ensure that we get the skills at the time when we need them.
As a government, as your partners, we recognise that we have things that are only amateur payday, things that we have to do. We need to have the certainties of policies, you know, what, how do we make decisions? What are some of the requirements for the regulations? That is our duty. This is not to say we will necessarily have the policy you would like, but at least you will know the policy.
However, in our environment, we discuss that with the stakeholders before we develop a policy. We always do that. We don’t just say, “Oh, tomorrow, this is a policy; therefore, you take it or leave it. No, we always have a discussion.
But during that discussion, things happened because I also know some of those policies, we need to develop that will incentivise you to invest. It’s a policy to ensure that the partners and parties benefit from this mutually, equally or fairly. Therefore, if we devise a policy that suddenly benefits the other party more than the other, the other party will complain.
Therefore, I know we will have a difficult conversation—and we must have those difficult conversations. I also know that when we go into those boardrooms, the investor will discuss the policy framework we are putting on the table with a view to what his shareholders will request or expect.
I will also have been discussing that policy framework while considering what my shareholders expect because I also have shareholders, the Namibian people. And they expect certain things from this, which we are discussing.
