The country needs to step up its preparedness, or risk losing out on the financial value chain of the country’s offshore oil and gas developments, former Minister of Mines and Energy Tom Alweendo warned on Tuesday. The half-day seminar ran under the theme: “From Discovery to Development: Preparing Namibia’s Financial Sector for a Sustainable Oil and Gas Economy”. Alweendo urged financial institutions to adopt a model of structured, risk-managed inclusion to ensure that previously disadvantaged Namibians participate meaningfully in the sector. If the oil and gas sector develops without deliberate financial inclusion, it may simply reproduce old patterns of ownership under a new sectoral name,” he added. Companies must become finance-ready,” he said, adding that the seminar should move Namibia from discussion to structured preparation.