Mines and Energy Minister Tom Alweendo has reiterated that all natural resources belong to Namibians and need to be harnessed in order to benefit all.

Alweendo said this during an open discussion on the discovery of oil and gas in the ||Kharas Region.

Alweendo was responding to questions and comments during the meeting with regional leaders, traditional authorities, captains of industry, and the general public on the discovery of nearly 500 million barrels of oil in the region.

"Both our constitution and the law say everything natural under the soil or in the waters belongs to the Namibian people. The complication only comes in when those resources under the soil or in the waters that belong to the Namibian people become valuable to you if you are able to take them out and sell them to somebody else who wants it. That is the only way it benefits you. As long as it's still there in the ground or in the water, it does not mean anything to you. It has no value until somebody takes it out for you or you take it out yourself and trade it for something else, which you don't have now."

LPM leader Bernadus Swartbooi, in his contribution, proposed that a portion of the profits from oil go to the corporate social responsibility of regional councils.

"We are proposing a natural resource integrity management council that will be made up of a number of people across the length and breadth of this country to constantly look at sector by sector of our natural resources because as citizens we have stood away too long from the management of resources and we have trusted bureaucrats who themselves are fighting for their own personal lifestyles to manage our resources."