Vitol fuel supply extension: publish the terms

Statement by the Shadow Minister of International Relations and Trade

1. WINDHOEK, On 10 September 2026 the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy confirmed to Reuters that the sole bulk-fuel supply arrangement with Vitol Bahrain E.C., presented to Namibians in June as a three-month emergency measure ending on 30 September, has been extended into October.

2. The Ministry called it "a one-off and final arrangement" that "will not be renewed beyond October 2026", and said nothing about what replaces it, when a tender will be published, or what the extra month costs.

3. The arrangement was concluded without an open tender, under the emergency of the Iran conflict, with one foreign trader supplying the whole country's petrol and diesel. In May the Ministry announced regulations under which it may invite suppliers to import fuel, and no draft has been published since.

4. On 2 September diesel rose by N$1.60 a litre to N$27.86 and the road user charge went from 243 to 273 cents. An emergency that is extended by press statement, with no instrument anyone can read, has stopped being an emergency and become a procurement method.

5. This is how a temporary measure turns into the architecture. Namibia has watched the same move before, from exploration licences renewed by word of mouth to a local-content policy approved by Cabinet in August and still ungazetted, and now a three-month deal that is quietly four. Each step is called practical, and each moves a decision worth billions further from Parliament.

6. The Minister should table the extension instrument and its price basis in the National Assembly, publish the invitation for supply from 1 November within seven days, and gazette the coordination regulations before this arrangement lapses.

7. The cost lands on people who were never in the room. A long-distance truck driver on the Walvis Bay road now pays N$128.00 more to fill an 80-litre tank than he did in August. A taxi driver in Katutura absorbs the road user charge before he earns his first fare of the morning.

8. A fishing crew in Lüderitz waits on diesel priced under a contract nobody has seen. They are entitled to know who supplies their fuel, at what price and under what authority, and today nobody can tell them.

9. Questions on this country's fuel supply, including on Vitol, remain on the National Assembly Questions Paper. They have not been answered in this House. Today the answer arrived through Reuters instead: one more month, and trust us. Namibians deserve a contract they can read, a tender they can see, and a Minister who answers Parliament.

Namibia is all we have
Namibia is not for sale
We must and can save it!

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