Windhoek
The Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, John Mutorwa, on Tuesday said he was waiting to hear from President Hage Geingob on the negotiations to buy the N$3 billion Areva Resources Namibia desalination plant in the Erongo region.
This came at a time when government seeks to implement long-term plans and strategies to beef up water supply to the coastal towns and industries in Erongo.
In an interview with New Era on the latest development regarding the sale of the Areva desalination plant to government, Mutorwa said significant progress has been made on the potential deal – with the final report submitted to the president for his final consideration.
Mutorwa said he submitted the report to buy the plant to Geingob after the government negotiating team drafted and handed it to him as the line minister.
“After the report was given to us as a ministerial committee in March, I forwarded it to the president because he must have an insight into the report,” Mutorwa said.
“He has been so busy and has not come back to us. I, as the line minister, submitted the whole report with the recommendations to the president, who is the chairperson of Cabinet. We are waiting for his advice. He has been busy, I must say, and he has not come back to say whether the things should go directly to Cabinet or what. But that’s where we are,” he revealed.
Once Cabinet considers the report, it will then make a final decision on the various options recommended, one being either to buy the existing desalination plant or to go ahead to build a new plant.
Mutorwa refused to divulge the contents of the report until or unless Cabinet considers it.
Earlier, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Abraham Nehemia, said Areva had given government an offer.
“We have done studies and have looked at the plant with due diligence. We have now prepared a report that we have sent to the minister to present to Cabinet for final consideration. We are waiting for feedback,” he said.
When asked on the content of the report, he said everything is leading to negotiations and he thus could not shed much light at this stage.
“The more we expose ourselves, the more we make ourselves vulnerable to the other side. So we have to be sometimes careful not to expose government, otherwise we will be in a weak position when negotiating. But there is good progress,” he said.
When the government through the national water utility, NamWater, embarked on the journey to purchase the desalination plant, its expectations were for the plant to start supplying water by 2016.
The country is currently experiencing water shortages, with government resorting to the implementation of strict measures to stem the situation.
Most, if not all the central coastal towns and businesses in Erongo have been historically supplied with water from the Kuiseb and Omdel aquifers. The aquifers’ volumes have however been decreasing over the years.
The region has no perrenial rivers.
The agreement will enable NamWater to supply its customers with water from the country’s first desalination plant, which is situated at Wlotzkasbaken, some 30km north of Swakopmund.
The plant supplies water to the Husab and Rössing uranium mines, and if the government buys the plant, these two mines would still be supplied with water.
The plant has a design capacity of 20 million cubic metres annually. Currently, the Erongo region’s annual demand is at least 11 million cubic metres of water.
Negotiations for the government to acquire the desalination plant started in 2014, for its eventual handover to NamWater.