Chamber of Mines Executive Committee
President - Zebra Kasete
Zebra Kasete is the General Manager, Vice President and Managing Director at Dundee Precious Metals Tsumeb. He brings almsot 30 years of mining and smelting experience to the operation, having held senior positions within the mining industry serving both Rio Tinto and Rossing Uranium. He has extensive experience in the areas of production, processing, procurement, business and strategic development. Prior to joining Dundee Precious Metals Tsumeb, Mr. Kasete was the Managing Director of Murowa Diamonds, Zimbabwe, and has held positions internationally including Namibia, Australia and the United States.Mr. Kasete is a metallurgist and holds a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. He was appointed Vice President and Managing Director of Dundee Precious Metals Tsumeb in February 2016.
1st Vice President - Hilifa Mbako
Hilifa Mbako was educated in England since 1983 where he read Business, Finance, Politics, Philosophy, Economics and Journalism. He worked in the United Kingdom and Mexico for a year before returning to Namibia in 1989.He joined the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in 1993 as the Head of Radio Services and was subsequently promoted to Senior Controller: News and Current Affairs. He oversaw the transition of the broadcasting services from the pre-independence era to the new NBC.He was appointed Group Manager of External and Corporate Affairs at Namdeb Diamond Corporation in 1997 and was appointed a member of the Executive Committee in 1999. He served as Chairman of the Oranjemund Town Management Company for three years, the fore-runner to a municipal town council now in place.In 2001 he was appointed as CEO of Allianz Insurance Namibia until the organization’s merger with Santam in 2003 where he became General Manager. In 2006 he was appointed Senior Business Development Manager at Alexander Forbes Insurance. He returned to Namdeb briefly in 2007 as Group Manager Corporate Affairs to assist with a transformation process until 2009. In December 2009, he was offered the position of Country Manager at Orano Resources Namibia to prepare the establishment and development of the new uranium mine at Trekkopje. On 1 June 2013 he was appointed as Managing Director of Orano Resources Namibia, Executive Chairman of Orano Processing Namibia and Executive Chairman of the Erongo Desalination plant.Hilifa has a track record as an effective change manager, able to lead organisations through significant cultural transformations in rapidly changing external environments. He has the strong ability to work effectively with multiple stakeholders and has networking power in Namibia and beyond.In 1989 he led a team of Namibian NGOs tasked to seek partnerships with international aid agencies to establish a repatriation, resettlement and rehabilitation framework for Namibia before the first democratic elections. He held extensive negotiations in Geneva, Paris and Belgium on funds, logistics, protocols etc. These efforts led to the successful repatriation of exiles in time for the elections that led to Namibia’s Independence in 1990. 2nd Vice President - Irvinne Simataa
Irvinne Simataa is an experienced mining executive and a registered Professional Engineer with a set of well-developed competencies and a diversified mineral commodities experience. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mining Engineering from The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, a Senior Management Development Programme certificate from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Stellenbosch and further completed the Program for Management Excellence at the Gordon Institute of Business, University of Pretoria.
Currently, he is reading for a Masters of Science in Engineering at The University of Witwatersrand. Irvinne Simataa is currently the General Manager and Director of Skorpion Zinc Mine and Refinery. He has occupied various technical and management roles in the mining industry in the last 13 years. Prior to his current role, he has held key roles such as mining manager, mine planning manager and vessel manager and has an excellent track record managing multi-disciplinary technical and management teams at major mining companies such as NAMDEB Diamond Corporation (Pty) Ltd, AngloGold Ashanti, Debmarine Namibia and now Skorpion Zinc.
Given the increasing need to find cost effective techno-economical means of extracting mineral resources safely and sustainability, he brings innovation and robust thinking to the table with this prime objective in mind He continues to coach and mentor a number of young and upcoming engineers in the mining industry. He is passionate about competency development and innovation within mining as strategic levers to achieve a productivity step change.
Chief Executive Officer - Veston Malango
Mr. Veston Malango is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Mines of Namibia. He is a Mining Engineer with a M.Sc. Degree (1985) from the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany and a qualified Gemmologist with Diplomas (1993) in Diamond Grading and in Coloured Gemstones from the German Gemmological Training Centre in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. Mr. Malango holds an MBA (2004) from the Maastricht School of Management, The Netherlands.
Mr. Malango has 34 years of experience in the mining industry in the SADC region. He worked in the Zambian copper mines after university studies as a graduate mining engineer, then at the Ministry of Mines and the SADC Mining Sector Coordinating Unit in Lusaka. Mr Malango was the Deputy Director of Mines at the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Namibia for eight years and then joined Ongopolo Mining & Processing Ltd, now Weatherly Mining Namibia for one and half years as Director responsible for strategic projects. He has been heading the Chamber of Mines of Namibia since October 2005.
Mr. Malango currently serves on Boards of the Namibia University of Science and Technology – Mining & Process Engineering Advisory Board (Board Chairperson), Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (NIMT) and the Minerals Development Fund of Namibia (MDF). He has previously served on several other Boards; i.e. Bank of Namibia (Chairperson of the BoN Remuneration Committee), the Council of the Namibia University of Science and Technology as Vice-Chairperson, Namibia Trade Forum and the Namibia Medical Care (NMC) Fund. He is the past President of the Mining Industry Association of Southern Africa (MIASA), a private sector regional body of all Chambers of Mines in the SADC Region. MIASA membership comprises the Chambers of Mines of Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia & Zimbabwe