Few Elite Own Mineral Wealth – Heita

Tunomukwathi Asino

1 June 2011

Windhoek — The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) Secretary for Energy and Mineral Resources, Martin Heita, has criticised the fact that Namibians are tormented by poverty, despite the fact that the country is rich in mineral resources.

“There is no doubt that our country is rich in natural resources including minerals but it remains very unfortunate that poverty in our country continue to increase unabated,” Heita said.

He was speaking on Monday at a press conference called by RDP to air its views on the mining sector in Namibia.

“The mineral wealth of Namibia is vested with the state and the government is the custodian of mineral endowment of our country on behalf of the state. That makes the Namibian people the masters and full owners of this country’s mineral wealth and they have the unquestionable right of access to their resources.

“However, the mineral riches of Namibia are and continue to be controlled by a few elites who are politically well connected and this situation must come to an end as the wealth of Namibia belongs to the Namibian people and not to a few ruling class elites exploiting the majority,” Heita said.

“The list of Exclusive Prospecting Licences (EPLs) owners of uranium and other important minerals is shocking to say the least as this is in the hands of those who are connected to those in power and this reveals that the masses of our country are excluded from the main economic stream.”

Heita added that with the official unemployment rate at 51.2 percent plus less than 500000 able-bodies to work, “there is a great cause for concern in this respect”.

He feels that Government’s empowerment policies in the mining sector must be reviewed with clear focus on real issues affecting those who are empowered to enter the mining sector.

The way in which the ruling party has designed its strategy by controlling the mainstream of resources is not surprising but a long drawn approach for exclusivity, he said.

“I should remind those in power today that during the long and bitter struggle for independence, the motto of our struggle was based on sharing the natural resources of Namibia after independence and that Namibians would be the owners and masters of their resources.

“This statement has long been buried under the sea as soon as we attained our freedom which has now become a fiefdom as many and hundreds of thousands of Namibians continue to live in abject and horrible poverty trap and without any recourse in sight,” Heita said.

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