EDITORIAL: True, the oil is not ours
Is the statement “the oil is ours” what Namibians want to hear, irrespective of its illusionary posture? It’s like clapping hands at the suggestion that the Brave Warriors are the best team in the world. Or that the Omatako Mountains are the highest.
Obeth Kandjoze landed himself in a lion’s den when he echoed late president Hage Geingob’s statement last year that “the oil is not ours”. In fairness, it’s a painful statement to hear. Or rather, it’s a painful reality.
Kandjoze’s words are hurtful, but true. He could reconstruct his statement a dozen times to nurse our feelings, but the fundamentals on the ground would remain intact.
It would, in fact, be criminal if Kandjoze lied that we own the specific oil discoveries, even when technical facts show that the exclusive prospecting licences (EPLs) were legally issued to those who discovered it.
For the record, many indigenous Namibian companies have been issued with similar licences and are, perhaps, sitting on huge reserves of oil themselves. But the law, to which we have all sworn our collective allegiance, remains. When the owner of an EPL discovers oil, whether it’s Ms Gowases from Utuseb or Mr Hickinbottom of Stoke in England, it is their oil.
What we ought to ask ourselves is how we, the sovereign people of the land that produced the discovered oil, can best share in the wealth? Or, perhaps, can the foreign explorers leave our shores so that we do the exploration and production ourselves? Either that, or the oil is truly not ours!
Obeth Kandjoze landed himself in a lion’s den when he echoed late president Hage Geingob’s statement last year that “the oil is not ours”. In fairness, it’s a painful statement to hear. Or rather, it’s a painful reality.
Kandjoze’s words are hurtful, but true. He could reconstruct his statement a dozen times to nurse our feelings, but the fundamentals on the ground would remain intact.
It would, in fact, be criminal if Kandjoze lied that we own the specific oil discoveries, even when technical facts show that the exclusive prospecting licences (EPLs) were legally issued to those who discovered it.
For the record, many indigenous Namibian companies have been issued with similar licences and are, perhaps, sitting on huge reserves of oil themselves. But the law, to which we have all sworn our collective allegiance, remains. When the owner of an EPL discovers oil, whether it’s Ms Gowases from Utuseb or Mr Hickinbottom of Stoke in England, it is their oil.
What we ought to ask ourselves is how we, the sovereign people of the land that produced the discovered oil, can best share in the wealth? Or, perhaps, can the foreign explorers leave our shores so that we do the exploration and production ourselves? Either that, or the oil is truly not ours!
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Namibian Sun
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