• Namibia court upholds ethics ruling against state broadcaster NBC

• Case tied to biased oil report amid sector’s rapid expansion
  

Namibia’s High Court has upheld a ruling by the Media Ombudsman and the Editors’ Forum of Namibia (EFN), the country’s press self-regulatory body. The ruling found that state broadcaster NBC breached journalistic ethics.

The judgment, reported by local media on Oct. 15, found that an NBC report on the oil operations of Canadian company ReconAfrica lacked balance. The court said the Ombudsman acted “reasonably” in handling the complaint against the public broadcaster, even though it was filed after the deadline, and that NBC failed to maintain editorial balance.

The dispute stems from a March 2021 broadcast that was deemed overly favorable to ReconAfrica. The company’s PEL 73 license covers about 25,000 square kilometers in northeastern Namibia’s Kavango Basin, near the Okavango Delta. After review, the EFN Complaints Committee ruled in 2022 that the report lacked balance but found no evidence it had been paid for. The High Court ultimately dismissed NBC’s appeal.

Oversight and Oil Boom

The ruling comes as Namibia’s energy sector expands rapidly. Major firms including TotalEnergies, Shell, Galp, and BW Energy are conducting offshore exploration and appraisal campaigns around the Venus, Graff, Mopane, and other fields, while ReconAfrica continues its onshore operations. Final investment decisions are expected to begin between 2025 and 2026.

The oil boom underscores the twin challenge of safeguarding information integrity and avoiding any perception of collusion between extractive companies and state media. Several NGOs, including the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), have since 2024 called for public disclosure of oil contracts and adherence to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

Those demands echo controversies around ReconAfrica, highlighted in several investigations. A Namibian parliamentary committee reported this year that the firm began drilling without securing all required permits, including water permits. Local organizations and communities along the Kavango River have also filed complaints over insufficient consultation and environmental risks.

Since 2021, Namibia’s score in the Transparency International’s index has remained stable at 49 out of 100. In the last index, in 2024, the country ranked 59th worldwide.

Abdel-latif boureima