BuaNews (Tshwane)
12 October 2007
Pretoria — An agreement has been reached between South Africa and Namibia to establish how best the neighbouring country can benefit from the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, writes Sholain Govender.
Following the economic bilateral meeting between the two heads of states, President Thabo Mbeki and President Hifikepunye Pohamba this week, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said that Namibia has established an inter-ministerial committee to determine how they could best benefit from South Africa hosting the 2010 soccer event.
"We have agreed on a mechanism that will ensure we can have this co-ordination," said Mr Mpahlwa speaking at the Presidential Guesthouse Thursday.
"We also received a report on collaboration in the area of marine and coastal management of South Africa and Namibia," he said.
The minister said that the collaboration largely involved issues of capacity building, skills training and co-operation with South Africa providing the necessary capacity building support.
He said both Angola and Namibia have expressed satisfaction in terms of how they were benefiting from the agreement.
Other items on the agenda of the bilateral meeting included a presentation on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which South Africa and Australia are bidding to host.
Mr Mpahlwa said the SKA is something that will involve the co-operation of a number of countries in the region, including Namibia, for the location of the required 4 500 satellite dishes. He said engineering and science skills development were some of the possible benefits of the project.
He said this showed that South Africa was emerging in the region in the field of astronomy and the SKA along with the telescope that is located in Namibia called Hess and the SALT located in Sutherland "will add to our involvement in the field of astronomy".
The other item on the agenda was trade and industry related issues; transport and communication issues; energy issues; environment and tourism issues and agricultural issues.
In terms of transport, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on co-operation in transport was drawn-up to ensure there is co-operation in the maritime sector.
"Our ports authorities will also have some sort of MoU," said Mr Mpahlwa. "The area of transport is an area we have identified as critical to the work we will together. There are also various transport corridors between the two of us."
He said the upcoming Namibia Investors Conference scheduled for 31st October - 1 November 2007 is the culmination of work done to develop the Walvis Bay Spatial Corridor and work has been done to identify the economic potential and package the various projects to attract the interest of business representatives.
"In the energy sector we are also doing a number of things together," said Mr Mpahlwa, "there is work that has been underway to ensure that out of the gas reserves or deposits in Namibia we are able to address our energy needs."
He said there was the necessary co-operation between the two ministers of trade and industry but also between the two power utilities - Eskom and NAMPower.
"We have received a progress report and it is clear that by the next meeting they will be able to mark some progress in this area," he said.
"So the Orange River, which is the river between the two countries, presents opportunities for hydro power generation and we have agreed in this meeting that work should proceed to look at the possibility of creating a hydro electric power plant along the Orange River."
The minister said there was the larger project called the Southern Africa Power Pool that involves the DRC, Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana.
"It is an initiative that was started under the auspices of SADC because the projection then was that come 2007 we were going to begin to experience power challenges," he said. "We initiated this process to invest in new power generation."
He said there are various power projects that are located in various countries. This includes the WesCor (The Western Power Corridor) which involves South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Botswana and the DRC each of whom own 20 percent of this project.
He said the entire region was grappling with the challenge of energy security and there was stronger movement towards sources of cleaner energy.
"Nuclear energy is an issue that has merged as something that is on the agenda of the world at the moment," he said. "So this is another area where we are looking at co-operating more closely."
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