A project by the South African government to supply Cape Town with gas from
the Kudu gas field in Namibia had to be dropped because the gas
reserves are rated insufficient. Although the South African government and several black businesspersons like Tokyo Sexwale have for a long time promoting it, the project to supply the Cape Town power station with gas from the Kudu field in Namibia was seen as economically not viable. Publishing its annual report this week, the South African firm Energy Africa, which holds a 40% stake in the Kudu gas field, it said that the field’s reserves ranged between 1 and 1.5 billion cubic feet, an amount that was not enough to warrant building a gas pipeline from Oranjemund to South Africa to supply a power station in Cape Town.

Accordingly, Energy Africa and ChevronTexaco, which owns 60% in Kudu, will now turn to Plan B: to build a gas-fuelled power station in Namibia itself with a capacity of 800 mega watt. The new plan would enable Namibia to not only to overcome its envisaged power shortage around 2006/2007, but also eventually become an exporter of electricity. The proposed 800 MW gas power plant near Oranjemund could possibly make the 30MW hydro power plant on the Okavango River near the Popa Falls redundant.

A new fax service was introduced by Telecom Namibia this week. It enables corporates to connect to Telecom for the loading of brochures; application forms and general information to a mailbox fax service, which can be faxed to individuals on request. According to Ms Valerie Appolus, who gave a presentation to media and company representatives on Tuesday, about 30 pages could be retrieved. Companies can apply at Teleshops or directly at Telecom for this service, which also adheres to security precautions, to prevent misuse of this service. Smart fax provides bigger access to customers and enables increased market penetration.

A week-long conference of the Southern African Telecommunications Association (SATA) in Windhoek culminated in the meeting of the chief executive officers of SATA affiliated companies on Friday. SATA coordinates the development of ICT networks and services in southern Africa, Priavaistaion of state entities and the liberalisaiton of the IT services provided challenges for SATA members, said Mr J. Ndoroma, new CEO of Telecom Namibia. Focus should be on making the SADC region an effective and competitive player in the global economy for the benefit of all people in SADC countries, he said.

Deputy lands minister Isaac Katali tabled an amendment to the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act on Tuesday in Parliament after the National Assembly had a 4-week recess. The definition of "owner" is widened and the close corporations (CC) practice will be stopped by the amendment. The powers of the Lands Minster to expropriate land have been extended. As the Deputy Minister explained, this has become necessary because of incidents that were "repugnant" in the eyes of society, such as dumping "some segments" of the Namibian society onto roadsides. Debate on the amendment starts next week.

About half of the government ministries again contravened the State Finance Act and exceeded their budgets. In the Auditor General’s report on the government’s accounts for the financial year ending March 2000, which was tabled in parliament this week, the AG noted that he in previous reports had repeatedly requested ministries to avoid over expenditure. Lack fiscal discipline, failure to claim back cash advances on travel allowances, unreconciled ledgers and late submissions were but some of the long list of complaints made in the report. The ministry of health and social service overspent by N$ 101,8 million.

Sweden donated 13 million Namibia dollars to the National Planning Commission for a Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey (NHIES) that is to start next month. It will help establish data and information on demographic, socio-economic and housing characteristics for the population and income distribution. Data collected from the survey would enable the government to plan and set the right dimension for resources needed for education, health and housing, according to Dr Göran Hedebro, chargé d’affaires and head of the Swedish embassy on Namibia

Defence Minister Erkki Nghimtina opened the first UN military peacekeeping training course for 27 military officers from 11 African countries. The two-week training is based on new modules established at the UN offices last year. The first course in Africa was held in Senegal two months ago.