Sima Luipert

Just me

[Rodney Cloete @rodneycloete]

Most people have no idea how resource curses actually start, so let me show you one forming in real time. Namibia just handed Vitol one of the most powerful commodity traders on Earth a N$7.2 billion exclusive fuel monopoly for three months. The state's own oil company, NAMCOR, offered the same fuel 10 cents cheaper per litre. They lost anyway. Their former acting MD, Maureen Hinda-Mbuende, is now publicly saying what everyone privately knows.

And here's where it gets darker. Vitol's subsidiary Vivo owns the Shell and Engen stations so the monopolist now sees the import data of its own retail competitor and can pick off NAMCOR's clients one by one. This is textbook elite capture Vitol's local partner is Mathews Hamutenya, whose son's company, Nasan, just bought 52 Engen stations and is appealing a Competition Commission ban on buying fuel from Vitol. Who decides that appeal? The same Minister who just gave Vitol the monopoly. Angola in 1979, Nigeria in 1985 the pattern is always the same. The state doesn't get robbed. It hands over the keys.
- https://t.co/n4JeEmBDtd

[Rodney Cloete @rodneycloete]

So here’s where it gets interesting, because history has already run this experiment for us. In 2016 Mozambique handed Vitol exactly the arrangement Namibia just signed one supplier, no competition, trust us and according to the London Standard it cost their state oil company eighty million American dollars in overcharging. Eighty million. This is the thing about single-supplier deals that every weak state from Maputo to Caracas keeps relearning the hard way: when there’s only one seller in the room, the price stops being a market and starts being a tribute, and the buyer always finds out too late.

And now watch this, because it gets better. Amutse stood up in Parliament and told the House “there is only one Vitol.” One Vitol. Except the corporate records the GLEIF legal entity registers, sitting in public, free, checkable by anyone with a phone show Vitol Bahrain E.C. and Vitol SA both rolling up into the same holding company in Luxembourg, Vitol Holding II S.A. So the Minister has now put a claim into Hansard that any journalist, any student, any citizen can test against the paper trail in about four minutes. Ministers have survived scandals, they’ve survived court cases, but the one thing no minister in history has ever survived is the moment the public realises it can fact-check him faster than he can speak.

https://t.co/Ip2Rb3kmYX

[Henning Melber @HenningMelber]

https://t.co/LEP1fdvq4F
‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century

[Henning Melber @HenningMelber]

Unearthing Namibia’s forgotten genocide through forensic archaeology https://t.co/7ftMAmHPPR via @ConversationUK

[Henning Melber @HenningMelber]

When the postcolonial state reproduces the colonial mindset...
https://t.co/iMw5nrgQB8

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

@ngurare I hope the PM will contact me

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

@ngurare Meaning NWR must take over access administration? Hope it also means the mess created through this dubious concession will be discussed with the relevant parties who initiated the process

[Henning Melber @HenningMelber]

What does ‘One Namibia One Nation’ mean 36 years later? https://t.co/n56OqTkoGV

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

https://t.co/XxU9Kbe77E

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

So sweet. She’s saying I couldn’t have done it without you

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

We have much to learn from children.

Two victories: she won the match and she won when she transformed her opponent's sadness into a smile.

[Amnesty West & Central Africa @AmnestyWARO]

In Northern Ghana, hundreds of women accused of witchcraft live in exile.
Their voices are at the center of the exhibition 'Ghana: Branded for Life'. As many of them say: “I’m not a witch.”

Explore their stories and experiences through this virtual exhibition.

[Jean M.🇮🇪 @JeanM963]

If we don't educate children in history, culture, languages, religion, traditions, ethics and critical thinking preferring instead to limit them to STEM subjects, then we are raising a generation of easy to manipulate morons. This is becoming ever more obvious today.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Australian man got tired of people parking in his driveway, so he decided to install a motion-activated sprinkler.

[📹 rockhamptonchaos]

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

He’s having so much fun

[African Hub @AfricanHub_]

This talented boy is not getting the attention he deserves just because he is an African

[Sima Luipert @Simaluipert]

@rodneycloete I’ve also been wondering 😅

[Henning Melber @HenningMelber]

https://t.co/oesPZjwfKF

[The Namibian @TheNamibian]

Senior government officials will transition to public healthcare facilities on 1 April, following a presidential directive aimed at reforming Namibia’s healthcare system. https://t.co/TfITr5TVIr