The Presidency has moved to take control of upstream petroleum local content by appointing the Upstream Petroleum Unit (UPU) as the local content regulator.
The new local content policy, approved by Cabinet on 4 August, is endorsed by the unit, headed by Kornelia Shilunga, and gives it institutional power to enforce and regulate the policy.
The UPU’s role is “to coordinate, implement, monitor and enforce the requirements of the [local content policy], including compliance, reporting, and regulatory oversight functions,” according to section 7.1 of the policy, seen by The Namibian.
This is a change from the widely-circulated March 2025 version of the policy, which gave the Ministry of Industrialisation, Mines and Energy the same powers.
The UPU was established by the petroleum amendment bill, which has not yet been passed in parliament. Parliamentarians have raised concerns about moving powers from the energy ministry to the presidency as this could reduce parliamentary oversight of a valuable natural resource.
The regulator – i.e. the unit – is also charged with creating a permanent inter-agency technical committee.
“The main responsibilities of the committee will include coordinating multi-sectoral local content interventions and financing mechanisms to support Namibian participation in the petroleum upstream sector,” the policy says.
In addition to Namcor and the UPU, the committee also will have representatives from ministries, Petrofund, the private sector and civil society organisations.
A previous version of the local content policy promised instead an independent regulator for managing local content.
“The ministry will cause the establishment of an autonomous industry regulatory authority, as may be designated by the government, to take over the responsibilities of the Local Content Division to administer the local content policy,” section 8.1 of the March 2025 draft reads.
The local content division does not appear in the new draft, but its establishment is a listed outcome in the policy’s action plan.
Institute for Public Policy Research executive director Graham Hopwood says local content in upstream petroleum needs to be transparent. Moving regulatory powers over local content to the UPU means that the unit itself should be transparent to be successful.
“[Transparency] depends on if the initial petroleum amendment bill is changed to introduce more accountability mechanisms, such as through the appointment of a minister responsible for petroleum affairs who could report to parliament,” Hopwood says.
Public policy analyst Marius Kudumo told The Namibian that conversations about who should regulate local content are premature, given that moving control of petroleum to the presidency is not settled.
“We have had various explanations why [petroleum] is in the presidency, but from a governance perspective, I am not convinced of the reasons we have heard thus far.”
“When the President gets involved in operational matters, you are putting that office in the firing line. You don’t want to expose [the presidency] to operational matters, especially in a sector that has so many issues,” Kudumo says.
The upstream petroleum unit did not immediately respond to request for comment.
