Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698751124800.pdf (Namibia)
TilE RALLY FOR OEJlIO£RACY AND PROGRESS (ROP.

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Website: www.rdp.org.na CONTRIBUTION BY HONOURABLE MIKE RATOVENI KAVEKOTORA, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, ON THE DEBATE OF THE APPROPRIATION BILL 2018 /2019 Thursday, the 15th March 2018 Honorable Speaker, Honorable Members of the August House, statement with a The Honorable Minister of Finance opened his paragraph that reads as follows: "This budget comes at a time after the is an Namibian economy had endured its most precarious phase.
is a funding compact for economy at its turning point and this budget growth, bringing about jobs, less poverty and improved It is a fiscal proposition to further consolidate non-core service delivery.

spending and align resources to core national priorities."

less inequality, It is a very powerful statement.

One just hope that This government such a strong statement.

attained with proper understanding, right ethical behavior and attitude.
the entire leadership understands and contextualize the meaning of can only be Justice to this pronouncement the right governance culture and the It is commendable that government eventually managed to reduce the budget deficit by a cumulative 3 percent over the past two years from 8.2 It is percent in 2015 / 2016 to an estimated 5.4 percent also good news that expenditure as a proportion of GDP dropped from 42.8 percent in 2015 /2016 to an estimated 38.7 in 2017 / 2018.
This is a very significant milestone especially when this is achieved during a time when the economy was facing critical challenges.

At the same time it is a in 2017 / 2018.

1 clear indication that a lot of waste is build into expenditures.

Honorable Minister, I urge you to continue with this positive trend moving forward.

to negatively affect However, service delivery.


it must be implemented with care not Honorable Speaker, Honourable Members, This August House was informed by the Minister of Finance that the public wage bill now stands at 50 percent of total revenue and at 16 percent of GDP.

This is very alarming indeed.

If my memory serves me well, this is not the first time such revelation was made.

Why is the government not taking corrective measures to resolve this unsustainable situation?
I suggest the government conduct a human resources audit on the entire public service and get rid of all the deadwood and ghost employees occupying some of these positions.

The same exercise must also be conducted at all state-owned enterprises, the National Assembly and National Council.

Some public enterprises have become dumping sites for the politically connected to get employment.
I am sure a human resource audit would reveal a mismatch between the jobs to be performed and the number and competency of employees.

Honorable Speaker, Honourable Members, Our economy suffers from what I call structural confusion emanating from a lack of proper ideological definition.
At times the government of the day projects socialist behaviors and at other times displays capitalistic tendencies the economy is the government is expected to play a leading role and what economic role is to be played by the private sector.

This confusion has led to some public subsidized by enterprises competing with the private in this government.

Monopolistic tendencies are very much apparent country because of such confusion.
in which sectors of sector while is not clear it For many years now the government has been talking about corruption and its negative impact on society.

For far too long, the nation has been 2 It the benefits accruing commensurate such as 'zero tolerance to corruption' hearing with pronouncements from such without seeing The Minister of Finance made mention of illicit pronouncements.
financial flows and misinvoicing prevalent on the African continent leading to an estimated U$50 billion illicit outflows from the Continent based on evidence from the African Union Report chaired by former is well and good that our South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Minister of Finance took not of the Mbeki Report.

Illicit financial flows has robbed the Continent of billions of dollars annually - in a corrupt manner, money that could have been used for the social good.
The finger points mainly on leaders of African governments and their associates.

The government must not simply mention those statistics as if these statistics are of no relevance to Namibia.

The government must act on these statistics.

Honorable Minister, you must tell the nation how much money goes out of Namibia through illicit means.

How much does the country lose through other unethical means such as transfer pricing and misinvoicing?

Who is responsible for the outflow of these monies?
What measures are you going to put illicit financial outflow and to recover those stolen funds?

in place to curb further 3 Honorable Speaker, Honourable Members, Some honourable members from that side of the isle were making jokes and laughed at me when I said corruption in Namibia has become part of the institutions.

Allow me to elaborate more on what I meant then.


in Corruption in Namibia manifests itself in discriminatory practices, nepotism, and in resource allocations: Corruption and manifest itself in inflated tender prices a common occurrence in Namibia.

in favoritism in wealth redistribution • There is corruption in the allocation of tenders.

• Yes, there is corruption in the redistribution of land for resettlement program.

• There is corruption in the allocation for housing development projects.
• Definitely, there is corruption in the allocation of Mass Housing Scheme houses.

• There is corruption in allocating urban plots for housing and business development.

• There is corruption in the tender adjudication process.

• There is corruption in the OMAs recruitment process.

• There is corruption in the OMAs promotion process.

• There is corruption in the recruitment of board members and CEOs of public enterprises.

• There is corruption in the wealth distribution.


• There is corruption in the promotions within the army and police ranks.

In other words, corruption is everywhere.

• Surely corruption is not the way to realize our development goals no matter how many billions are spent.

Vision 2030 is only 12 years away, and ifnothing is done now, we can forget achieving vision 2030.

Honourable Minister, 4 The increase in total debt stock as a percentage of GDP is very worrisome.
It increased from 42.6 percent in 2016 /2017 to 45.8 percent in 2018 / 2019 financial years relative to the threshold of 35 percent.

This is not prudent management of our national debt.

One wonders why the total debt stock has increased to an estimated 84.6 billion in 2018 / in 2017 /2018 financial year.
The Minister of 2019 from 74.5 percent Finance must explain to this August House especially in view of the drop in the estimated budget deficit from 5.4 percent in 2017 / 2018 of GDP to 4.5 percent in 2018 / 2019 financial year.

One would expect the reverse to be the case; that the drop in the budget deficit must result in a drop in borrowing or our debt stock.
Public Enterprises I have taken note that allocations to public enterprises have been reduced by an average of 20 percent since 2015 / 2016 financial year, reducing from a total allocation ofN$7.4 billion to N$6 billion in 2016 /2017 and further N$4 billion in 2017 /2018.

This is a welcome development and I really hope it comes with serious closing down, structural rightsizing considering.

Selling off.
Selling off.

enterprises: to public Such as changes • The government has been rewarding some public enterprises that miserably failed the strategic objectives or turn-around strategy.

• The government turned a blind eye on public enterprises that failed to comply with statutory requirements.

are they consistently rewarded with • There are public enterprises that fail to take proper books of records bail-out yet allocations.
For the benefit of those who are lawyers by tribe, a disclaimer audit opinion simply says that the financial situation is in such a mess that the auditors cannot express an opinion.

And an adverse opinion simply implies that the financial statements are not a true reflection of the financial position of such enterprise.

These rewards with are the very institutions the government additional that 5 additional funding.

That is extremely wrong and you are sending a wrong message to these institutions.
The introduction of 10% key on dividends is totally cancelled for and must be revised dividends are declared on earwig on income after tax.

What this effectively mean is that the same income is taxed twice and that effectively income rate at which such income is faxed.

We need to improve our investment environment and not scare investor off with unwarranted tax levies.

Hon Speaker.

to invest heavily infrastructure if you I would like to urge government in expanding the Namibian economic cake each.
The are serious in enhancing economic railways system offer the greatest potential growth, job creation and poverty alleviation js Don't even consider privatizing Trans Namib, rather re- engineer it for success.

In addition the our government must construction of a dedicated railway line to transport coal from Botswana to the port of Walvisbay for export.

Many SADC landlocked countries are looking at the port ofWalvisbay for their import, an opportunity that have not been fully capitalized on.
Imagine the revenue streams that can be generated from these opportunities.

revive negotiations with Botswana for to privatize Air Namibia.

In contract, I once again request government the With the introduction on new players in our aviation industry, government affectively killed Air Namibia.

What is left is just to bury it.

So just finish what you have started.


Social Sectors Honourable Speaker, I acknowledge the critical role played by the social sectors of education I also agree that the importance of these sectors warrants a and health.

6 result bigger budgetary allocation.

What worries me is the value for money Is the output in these sector line with the input?

Do these consideration.

in quality service delivery?

Are these resources allocations optimally applied?


Are these resources applied in the right proportion in If the the right ratios for optimal results?

outcome is anything to go by, one can reasonably conclude that there is a mismatch between the allocated resources and the deliverables.

There is a need to re-engineer the social sector of health and education to arrive at the right equilibrium of resources allocated and the optimal utilization of those resources.

I really don't think so.


Public Safety and Order increase in their Based on recent developments in defense the 5 percent budget is not justifiable.

If the Defense Ministry can manage to provide the nation with adequate security while 30 percent of their ranks are on leave, then defense is overstaffed and must reduce their workforce by 30 percent and allow those funds to be used for other societal needs.

Hon Speaker.
Hon Speaker.

destroy to effectively is on a mission In conclusion let me address this house on the allocation to committee services for the current financial year.

It looks like either the minister of finance and parliamentary services or the speaker is not standing up for the interest of parliament.

The is consistently been revised downwards from about N$14 million in the 2015116 to 5 million in the current budget and it's expected to go down financial year.
Your concerns seems to be to 1.4 million by 2019/20 saving on S&T with no regard whatsoever the constitutional for responsibilities given to parliament.

This is wrong and you must address this house on how either you, honorable minister or the speaker who for parliament parliament committee allocation services 7 agreed to this cut explain how parliamentary committee services sftoul<i CJ:Lrv function and fulfil its mandate.

I thank you 8