By Benjamin Wickham
RUNDU, May 8 — The Kavango communities in Namibia are in a legal battle against ReconAfrica, a Canadian oil and gas company, which they claim did not seek their consent before drilling on their communal lands. Despite their request for urgent action being rejected, the communities have appealed to the Minister of Environment and Tourism to withdraw permission for further drilling. The Legal Assistance Centre represented the community organizations in the High Court but received a bill of costs after the ruling went against them.
Civil society organizations and activists are standing in solidarity with the Kavango communities, calling on the government to waive the legal costs billed to them. The cost order is seen as an attempt to intimidate the communities and deter them from taking further legal action. The court costs have the potential to financially ruin the conservancies and community forests set up by the state to protect the environment in the Kavango region.
ReconAfrica has been accused of exploiting Kavango communities in the name of a neo-colonial oil racket. Their report by Sproule shows less than a 4 percent chance of finding a commercial resource, yet they told investors and Namibians that they had discovered a previously unexplored basin containing 120 billion barrels of shale gas. The advertising blitz drove up the share price, and company insiders sold their shares netting them hundreds of millions of Namibian dollars.
NAMCOR, the state-owned oil company, also sold half their stake, implying that they are aware that these shares will soon be worthless. The imposition of costs on these communities by ReconAfrica and NAMCOR cannot be justified in any way as being in the national interest. All court cost orders imposed on Kavango communities for standing up to ReconAfrica must be withdrawn.
The Namibian taxation master will decide on May 16, 2023, whether the Kavango communities will have to pay N$520,757 in legal fees, further complicating the situation for the already vulnerable communities. The outcome of the decision will have far-reaching consequences for the communities and the environment in the region. – Namibia Daily News
