State-owned enterprises that manage green schemes have been called to do away with excessive bureaucracy when procuring goods and services.

The call was made by the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources, Vincent Mareka, during a visit to the Naute Farm Irrigation Project near Keetmanshoop.

The farm is managed by the Namibia Industrial Development Agency.

Mareka says the committee found that this red tape in procuring services is hindering the operations of some green schemes.

"It is high time that on these projects, whoever is on the ground be given, really, a bigger portion of authority—eight percent—because for me, the CEO must manage his top staff, or HR must manage hers in Windhoek, but not the people on the ground and the project itself. I believe this is where we have a problem. With the NGC, the MD director lives at Aussenkehr and makes decisions there. Now, with the parastatals or government agencies we want to run, we are not managing our management; we want to run the project ourselves, and I believe this is part of the problem."

The acting manager at Naute Farm, Simon Akwenye, had this to say: "Mostly an example, especially in these businesses, because in businesses of this type, there is an exemption, or if there is no exemption, then a supplier of certain or critical inputs should be appointed over a longer period of time because then you don't need to go through the same process of procurement every year."

Another MP, Herlinde Tjiveze, suggests that green schemes start to invest in renewable energy such as solar to cut the high electricity costs.

Naute Farm produces dates, grapes, prickly pears, and pomegranates.

The company exports grapes to European markets.