Andre Klynsmith

Politics Insight

Who Still Owns the Quay? Namibia's Opposition Puts the Port Concessions Under Parliamentary Light

Namibia's opposition has asked the works and transport minister to table the full detail of every active, awarded and pending concession at the ports of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz — concession periods, lease fees, targeted cargo volumes and the names of the private concessionaires. A ministerial response is expected this week.

POLITICS INSIGHT

20 September 2026 • 5 min read

The question that matters commercially is buried in the last line of the request: how does Namport monitor its concessionaires, and how does it protect local logistics companies from excessive tariffs? That is a question about the price of using the port — and it has not yet been answered.

What has been asked

Independent Patriots for Change shadow minister of works and transport Nelson Kalangula has put a set of questions to works and transport minister Veikko Nekundi about long-term concessions at Namibia's ports, raising concerns over the Namibian Ports Authority's future revenue, its operations and the protection of local jobs. He is asking for details of all active, awarded and pending concessions at Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, including private concessionaires, concession periods, lease fees and targeted cargo volumes.

The questions follow the award of a 25-year concession to Terminal Investment Namibia, a subsidiary of MSC, to operate container-handling services at Walvis Bay's new container terminal. Kalangula also wants detail on job-retention guarantees, local-content requirements and protection against retrenchments or downgraded employment contracts under that agreement. Nekundi is expected to respond next week.

Why an oversight question is an operating question

For transporters and forwarders, a concession is not an abstract governance matter. It determines who sets the terminal handling charge, who owns the booking system, who decides the gate hours and who a customer complains to when a box sits too long. Where the port authority retains marine services but a private operator runs the container terminal, the cost stack a Namibian or Zambian shipper pays is split between two parties with different commercial incentives — and the visibility of that split matters.

Walvis Bay's whole proposition to the region has been that it is the reliable, competitively priced alternative for landlocked Botswana, Zambia and the DRC. That proposition is built as much on predictable tariffs as on transit time. A parliamentary request for published concession periods, lease fees and volume targets is, in commercial terms, a request for the inputs that determine whether that pricing promise holds for 25 years.

What the answer will and will not settle

It is worth being precise about the status of this story. These are questions, not findings. No allegation of wrongdoing has been made, no concession has been suspended, and nothing in the request changes the terms of any existing agreement. What it does is create a dated, on-the-record moment at which the terms of Namibia's port concessions may be placed in the public domain — something operators have not previously had in consolidated form.

The more durable issue sits behind the questions. Every SADC port pursuing private terminal operators — Walvis Bay, Durban, Nacala, Dar es Salaam, Maputo — faces the same structural tension between the capital a concessionaire brings and the pricing power a long concession confers. Regulatory monitoring is the mechanism that is supposed to hold those two in balance, and it is precisely the mechanism the opposition is asking to see described.

About the Author
	Andre Klynsmith Entrepreneur & Technology Enthusiast Andre's expertise spans technology, blockchain, transport, and logistics — with a passion for innovation and driving positive change across industries. info@laaimylorrie.com | laaimylorrie.com