The recent global AWS DNS outage reminded the world how fragile the internet becomes when control and resilience rest with too few players. Namibia faces a similar challenge much closer to home, one that strikes at the heart of its digital sovereignty.

Our national domain .na, including .gov.na remains under private administration. This long-standing arrangement has created a monopoly over a critical piece of Namibia’s digital infrastructure, raising concerns about transparency, accountability, and national security.

A national asset in private hands

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) lists the Namibian Network Information Centre (NA-NiC) as the delegated manager of .na. This private entity determines registration, pricing, and management policies. In practice, it controls access to Namibia’s online identity.

The result has been predictable: high local pricing, limited competition, and weak public oversight. Many Namibian businesses avoid .na entirely, opting for cheaper global domains such as .com or .org. The consequence is a slow erosion of Namibia’s digital identity and reduced local ownership of online assets.

Outdated legal framework

The Communications Act, 2009 (Act No. 8 of 2009) gives the minister of ICT oversight over the national domain and allows policy directives to be issued. However, it does not require the ministry itself to manage the registry. This legal gap has allowed the current private control to persist largely unchecked.

While the Act intended to promote accountability for digital infrastructure, enforcement has been weak, and no mechanism compels transparency or regular reporting. If Namibia truly wants the .na space to serve the public interest, policy and legislative reforms are overdue.

Technical fragility and national risk

The weaknesses are not merely administrative. They are deeply technical. Centralised DNS control means a single point of failure, if the private registry experiences downtime, cyber-attack, or a legal dispute, government and public websites could go dark.

Security features such as DNSSEC, which prevent domain spoofing and phishing, are not widely implemented. Nor is there evidence of redundant, geographically distributed name servers to ensure continuity. High registration fees (around N$750 per year for locals, several thousand for foreigners) further limit adoption, leaving the system financially and structurally fragile.

The dependency extends to government websites and emails under .gov.na, whose uptime and security ultimately rely on the private registry’s infrastructure. In a digital age where citizens depend on online services, this represents more than a technical oversight, it is a national-security vulnerability.

Lessons from the AWS outage

The AWS DNS failure in October 2025 disrupted services for millions worldwide. If such a sophisticated global provider can falter, Namibia must question why one private entity holds unchecked control over its entire national domain.

Strong DNS governance requires distributed name servers, mandatory DNSSEC, and government-backed continuity plans. These are not luxuries, they are baseline standards for national resilience.

Reforming the model

First, the Ministry of ICT and Cran should commission a public audit of the .na registry’s technical and governance structures. The findings must be transparent and shared with stakeholders.

Second, the government should establish resilience standards requiring redundant DNS infrastructure, security audits, and regular performance reports.

Third, Namibia needs a multi-stakeholder governance board that includes government, academia, the private sector, and civil society. Transparency must replace monopoly.

Fourth, the pricing model should be reviewed. Affordable, tiered pricing can encourage local adoption and fund infrastructure upgrades.

Finally, critical government domains should be migrated to redundant, state-controlled servers with independent backups.

A question of digital sovereignty

Domains are not just web addresses, they are digital territory. Allowing one private entity to control Namibia’s online identity weakens the nation’s sovereignty, transparency, and resilience.

The Communications Act laid the foundation for oversight, but leadership and enforcement have lagged. Namibia must reclaim stewardship of its domain space, not to exclude private participation, but to guarantee that it operates in the public interest.

The internet is global, but national responsibility is local. Namibia’s digital identity should never depend on the discretion of a private registry. The time to act, before a crisis forces it, is now.

Timo Neisho is an Information Technology practitioner with extensive experience in software development, enterprise systems and digital transformation. The views expressed here are his own.