Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698830535176.pdf (Namibia)
PDM Popular DelDoeratic MovelDent PARLIAMENT OFFICE OfIlce 154.

Southern Wing.

ParliaJnent Building.

Love Street.

Central Business District.

Windhoek Tel: +26461 288 8583 Fa.x2E: +264886557471 Email: pcbnnamibia@gmaiI.com SPEECH BY HON NICO SMIT ON THE APPROPRIATION AMENDMENT BILL OF 2019 29 October 2019 ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL?
Hon Speaker Funding Needs and Priorities are the two tickets the Minister of Finance has used in the Mid-Year Budget Review to convince this House to take away N$l billion from development projects and dump it into the operational budget.

and modus operandi have now become all too This rhetoric familiar.

If my memory serves me right, it was also the development budget that was pilfered a year ago to paper over the 2018 Mid- Year Budget Review and finance the Appropriation Amendment Bill 2018.
When the new budget was tabled in March this year, the Minister made much political noise about the 120/0 growth in the allocation for the development budget, conveniently not mentioning the fact this money was in effect taken from the development budget that six months earlier.
Hon Speaker, Hon Members The Mid-Year Review and concomitant Appropriation Amendment Bill, despite being touted as a budgetary management the 2 three years tool, has taken on a distinctive pattern over the past It is now a common feature of since the economic crisis started.

the Ministry's budgeting process that re- funds are allocated, allocated, and eventually dumped into the [insatiable) operational budget.
Some analysts have referred to the virement of funds as cosmetic tweaking without any direct impact on the government's overall expenditure commitments.

This may be so but it is of far greater concern that we are now into our third crisis year, and still the Instead, I underlying fundamental get the distinct impression that the can is just being kicked down the road with every main budget, and kicked further still with the mid-year review.
This pattern has now become so distinctive and repetitive, it serves no purpose to try and deny it.

flaws are not being addressed.

Hon Speaker One thing is clear from the Appropriation Amendment Bill: - it is the no longer possible for the Ministry of Finance to hide what government's agenda is.

Just by looking at the re-allocations, the is that those priorities become visible.

What concerns me though, votes that are pilfered first and should get priority treatment foremost.
It makes all the sense in the world to increase the allocation to the Electoral Commission for the obvious reason that the elections are at hand, but why the funds must be taken from Transport, Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development, Works, the Anti- Corruption Commission, and Public Enterprises, beats all logic.
the financial The increased allocation to the Electoral Commission is at least logical yet it goes against all common sense when one considers that implications arising from the elections were known at the beginning of the year when the main budget was tabled.

This significant increase of N$62 million in the Electoral Commission's allocation shows me that the Ministry of Finance did not prepare adequately earlier in the year for an event which they knew would need a lot of financing.
It is also an indication that the elections, until now, did not receive the attention it demands, from 3 the government.

Hon Speaker, Hon Members I also find no fault with the other two substantial allocations, N$97 million for agriculture relief.

Conditions on the ground dictate that spending must be increased for these very pressing issues.

However, I contend that the funds should have come from the operational budget, and not from the already meagre development budget.
and N$67 million for drought If we cut N$500 million from Safety and Security, less than 10% of their total allocation, and I am convinced that this will in the required level of safety and security.

not make a dent Similarly, an N$800 million cut from Defence would have provided enough money expenditures without jeopardising Namibia's military security.

These are the votes where the funds should have been obtained.
amended it is just for all the that In terms of the other diminishing priorities change during the course of the year, but when I consider those votes where the largest savings were effected, I am shocked is needed, not to see it is from those votes where more investment less.

I understand votes, After three years of limping along, how can we expect to get the economy back to growth when we systematically reduce the ability of those ministries that are supposed to drive the economic engine?
Hon Speaker investment The Minister made much reference to the recent conference and the stellar amounts and projects that were pledged and presented.

the number of I am still very sceptical about investments that will projects that will materialise, and the actual flow into the economy.

The members of this august House can check what conference when everybody was caught up in the hype of the enormous scale of the I said immediately after that paraded projects and investment commitments.
I will be convinced when I see tangible results.

4 It is normal in running a business and it is normal Re-allocating funds is a normal part of any pro-active budgetary process.

in running a country.

But when it follows the pattern of simply taking away from the development budget, it confirms my concerns that ills in the nothing has been done at all to address the fundamental is still hugely bloated, economy.
The government's wage bill the enormous wastage is still the rule and not the exception, little government's role in the economy is still so overbearing that room is left for private enterprise, and most important, for private investment.

Hon Speaker It is a futile undertaking to move funds around to address changes in spending priorities when the most important priorities are ignored completely.
It is equally futile to try and convince ordinary the government is acting to their advantage when Namibians that it is patently obvious with every new mid-year review, that we continue to pilfer funds from those votes where spending must actually be increased.

This strategy is clearly one of robbing Peter to pay Paul!

the government can do to prevent In the meantime, we continue to slip deeper into a debt trap and there is very little that this.
Ultimately, until such time as the basic development paradigm is not amended, we will continue to run short of resources and we will continue on our disastrous path of having to face the truth that the economy is getting smaller every year.

Virement may be an impressive word for shunting monies between it does nothing to restore the Namibian economy to votes but growth.
I suspect the Ministry of Finance will carry on with its strategy of shifting funds, but that it will do very little, other than talk shows, to fix the fundamental economic hosting investment flaws.

Does the government really want such a major crisis on its handa that only an externally induced full-blown financial meltdown will force it to change its financial window dressing?