Hyphen Hydrogen Energy’s chief executive, Marco Raffinetti, says any hint of corruption in the country’s emerging green hydrogen sector could destroy projects.
Raffinetti says Hyphen’s concession agreement with the government includes explicit anti-corruption measures.
“We have zero tolerance written into our concession agreement with the government – zero tolerance of corruption,” he says.
Raffinetti said this during a recent media familiarisation tour of the Tsau //Khaeb National Park, where Hyphen plans to develop a multibillion-dollar green hydrogen project.
His comments come as scrutiny over transparency in Namibia’s green hydrogen sector grows.
Concerns have been raised by analysts and civil society about the risk of corrupt practices.
“We will lose our entire project if there’s any corruption – on our side or on the government’s side. I don’t know how to be clearer than that,” Raffinetti said.
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) director Graham Hopwood recently cautioned in the organisation’s ‘Green Hydrogen Monitor’ that Namibia’s history with the Fishrot scandal and the SME Bank collapse shows a pattern of ignoring risks until it’s too late.
“There’s no reason to believe the green hydrogen sector is immune to similar risks,” he says.
Hopwood said Namibia’s green hydrogen projects currently face several risk factors, including a lack of transparency, opaque processes around access to finance and land, inadequate community consultation and concerns over the selection of companies and individuals to run the projects.
He says there are already politically exposed people with proximity to company structures and licence arrangements.
Hopwood encourages Namibia to subscribe to the Green Hydrogen Standard in an effort to champion transparency in the sector.
The Standard, developed by the Swiss-based Green Hydrogen Organisation in 2022, aims to promote green hydrogen in collaboration with the government, industry and other stakeholders.
Meanwhile, Eline van der Linden, the head of impact and environmental, social and governance at the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme, highlighted the importance of establishing clear standards to guide the industry’s development.
She was also speaking at the site visit over the weekend and acknowledged that green hydrogen is a relatively new concept globally.
“Embracing this standard is crucial because green hydrogen is new in the world,” she said.
Van der Linden said Namibia is working to implement standardised regulations.
“We are trying to move to some type of standardisation. So, we will investigate, we’ll look at it and see if it’s suitable for our environment,” she said.
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