The government has made a bold move towards making the country more self reliant in power generation. It has announced plans to ensure that the country maximises benefits derived from uranium oxide, which is currently on high demand on the world market. After months of speculation, the government has made known its intentions to develop nuclear power stations and uranium processing plants.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement this week that Cabinet has granted approval to the Ministry of Mines and Energy to develop a nuclear regulatory framework.
The framework is meant to pursue nuclear power and uranium beneficiation strategies, which the government said will provide a long term solution to the shortfall in electricity generation and enable the processing of uranium resources locally.
“The electricity shortages being experienced in southern Africa are expected to persist for many years. New electricity generation capacity installations appear to have become the trend worldwide towards achieving energy self-sufficiency, of which the southern African region and Namibia in particular should be no exception,” the statement said. “Namibia has significant uranium reserves and the country can gain more if these reserves could have value added to them prior to export.”