THE boss of the NamGem diamond-cutting and polishing company at Okahandja, Eliphas Hawala, will become the managing director of Government's new company Epangelo Mining.

Mines and Energy Minister Isak Katali made the announcement at the launch of the company's corporate logo yesterday.

"Eliphas Hawala will take up his post on August 9 and he has vast experience in the mining industry," Katali said.

Epangelo was started in December last year, when the board of directors was appointed with lawyer Ellaine Sampson as chairperson.

Epangelo is currently housed in the buildings of the ministry and it has N$1,5 million as start-up capital from Government.

One of the main reasons for Government to set up Epangelo was that the national development goals like Vision 2030 "can only be attained by means of greater State participation in the mining industry, which is the backbone of the economy".

It was also important to set up Epangelo to see to sustainable exploitation of mineral resources, to ensure local beneficiation of raw materials and to enter into joint-venture partnerships "with interested states and companies with similar objectives and corporate structures," according to Katali.

"The final objective of the company is to finance mining projects. This would ensure that an extremely capital-intensive industry where often well-positioned resources cannot be exploited with ultimate benefit to the State, may be capitalised. This would avoid the current situation where [mining] of mineral resources is stagnating due to lack of funding," Katali said.

"This would also complement Government initiatives already existing to finance mining initiatives."

The vision of Epangelo, which was also made public yesterday, is "to be the leading diversified mining company in Namibia" and the company wants to "ensure national participation in the discovery, exploitation and beneficiation of Namibia's mineral resources while developing and consolidating a portfolio of high quality assets and services for the benefit of its stakeholders."

According to Katali, the Government mining outfit would ensure that "the natural resources of the State, which belong to the Namibian people, would be utilised sustainably for the benefit of all Namibians in the present and in the future."

Katali said Epangelo would not fall into the same trap of mining several sites at the same time as was done by some other mining companies in the country.

Epangelo has shown interest in gaining a stake in the local uranium sector and has put out feelers to Rosatom, the Russian state company State Atomic Energy Corporation.

Rosatom and the Namibian Ministry of Mines will create a joint task group that will consist of Russia's Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) and Epangelo Mining.

In May this year, President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement to this effect in Moscow through a memorandum on exploration co-operation.

The agreement commits an investment worth US$1 billion in uranium exploration and uranium products.

"Rosatom keeps on working on concluding an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in peaceful nuclear energy and sent an application on developing Rössing South uranium deposit," a communiqué from the Russian government after Pohamba's state visit said, The memorandum will be in place for five years, with option for renewal.

The US$1 billion would go into development of uranium deposits, production and training in uranium mining and value addition, the chief executive officer of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, said then.