Mining projects held back by slow govt decisions

The mining sector has warned that slow decision-making by government ministries and public institutions could delay Namibia’s next wave of projects moving towards construction and undermine their ability to secure financing.

Industry leaders speaking at the recently concluded Mining Expo in Windhoek identified delays in regulatory approvals, environmental clearances, work permits and infrastructure decisions as key obstacles that need to be addressed as Namibia seeks to move more mining projects from exploration and development into production.

Chamber of Mines Namibia president George Botshiwe said the industry had reached a point where the focus needed to shift from identifying opportunities to removing the obstacles preventing investment commitments from becoming operating mines.

“This conference provides an important opportunity to honestly assess where progress has been made, where challenges remain and how government, industry and other stakeholders can work together to accelerate implementation,” Botshiwe said.

He said translating Namibia’s mining potential into reality would require continued efforts to remove obstacles already identified by the industry.

“These could be technical, such as water supply, or regulatory, including providing certainty around pending legislation, particularly the Minerals Bill,” Botshiwe said.

Botshiwe singled out delays in issuing Environmental Clearance Certificates as one of the problems affecting investment decisions.

“One of the biggest problems we have is the rate at which our environmental clearance certificates are approved. And that tends to hold us back in terms of making investment decisions,” he said.

Work permits

Osino Resources country director Werner Schuchmann, whose Twin Hills Gold Project is already under construction, raised similar concerns about the speed at which regulators and public entities make decisions.

“The normal issues you have with dealing with the regulators, the public entities, is the speed of decisions. In the end it always goes well, but the speed of execution is sometimes frustrating,” Schuchmann said.

At Twin Hills, where about 1 500 people and more than 60 contractors are working on the approximately US$500 million development, Schuchmann said immigration requirements were creating difficulties when foreign specialists were needed during construction.

“It’s really sometimes very frustrating for us to bring in, especially for a construction project, people from other countries,” he said.

He said some specialists who had already been in Namibia for two years were being required to repeat the process when renewing their visas.

“We’ve actually now got the thing that some people have been here for two years. The visas need to be renewed and we need to go through the whole process of interviewing again, which just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Schuchmann said delays become particularly critical during construction because activities must be completed within specific timeframes to avoid disrupting a project’s critical path and eventual production schedule.

“In a construction project we’ve got a certain window to execute things without impacting the critical path. We need to make sure that our product gets to the market when we say it is going to,” he said.

Koryx Copper country manager Lionel Coetzee raised similar concerns from the perspective of a project still moving towards construction, saying the proposed approximately US$1.6 billion Haib Copper Project would require several conditions to be in place before prospective partners could commit financing.

“This is going to be a US$1.6 billion mine, so we will need partners to help us. They’re going to ask us, ‘Are you permitted? Do you have water? Do you have power? Do you have access to the land?’” Coetzee said.

Haib is advancing environmental approvals, land-access arrangements, its mining licence application, as well as water and power solutions, while Koryx continues technical work on the project.

Coetzee said engagement with government institutions had been constructive, but warned that outstanding requirements must be concluded quickly if the project is to maintain the momentum needed to secure financing.

“But it’s critical that we actually get those quickly over the line. The longer you stay in there, you lose the validity to finance and actually bring this project, which is a transformative project for the ǁKaras Region and Namibia, to fruition,” he said.