Roast: Economic tourists in their own country

Welcome to Namibia, Namibian lawmakers. This is the Kunene region you are experiencing and gushing about, seemingly amazed by what lies beneath its soil and what its communities have been telling you about the mineral wealth around them.

Yes, honourable members, it is that rich, that forgotten and, in the eyes of many of the people who live there, being stripped naked while those elected to protect Namibia's interests sit in parliament with bills that could help determine how the country's mineral wealth is governed and how its people benefit from it.

There is something deeply uncomfortable, and admittedly slightly amusing, about Namibian lawmakers travelling through Namibia and reacting like economic tourists who have just discovered a country they have spent their lives living in.

You were born here, grew up here, campaigned here, asked Namibians to vote for you and eventually entered parliament to make laws for the same country, yet a trip to Kunene can apparently produce the excitement of visitors encountering Namibia's mineral wealth for the first time.

Welcome to Kunene, honourable members, where the scenery is spectacular, the minerals are real and the communities have been living with the contradiction of enormous wealth and precious little of it visible in their everyday lives for years.

Nobody expects every parliamentarian to know every geological formation, exploration licence or mineral occurrence in Namibia, just as nobody expects an MP to explain the technical difference between a mineral resource and an ore reserve over breakfast.

We should, however, expect people entrusted with national lawmaking and oversight to possess a working knowledge of an industry that has carried a significant part of Namibia's economy for decades.

That is why the apparent shock matters, because communities should not have to introduce lawmakers to the basic economic realities of the country those lawmakers govern.

Parliamentarians should arrive in Kunene already knowing enough to move quickly beyond admiration and ask who holds the licences, what communities receive, where the jobs are, how local businesses participate, what happens after the minerals leave and whether the laws governing all of this adequately protect Namibia's interests.

The irony becomes even richer when one remembers that some of the answers communities are demanding depend on decisions that eventually have to be taken in parliament, where legislation capable of changing parts of the mining landscape can spend considerably more time waiting than honourable members spend travelling around the country discovering why change is necessary.

Perhaps the next parliamentary fact-finding mission should therefore require no buses, accommodation, gravel roads or travelling allowances, because members could simply conduct a guided tour of the pending legislation and marvel at what they find there. There may even be something valuable buried underneath all that paperwork.

The greater irony is the lack of urgency in passing laws that could better protect Namibia’s mineral wealth and improve the lives of the people who live where that wealth is extracted, because while lawmakers can travel across Kunene and express shock at what communities are experiencing, the legislation meant to strengthen how the country manages its resources and benefits its people has taken far longer to move through the system.