Namibian budget speech tabled in parliament
Namibian Minister of Finance, Ms Saara Kuugongelwa-Amathila, delivered her National budget speech on the 30th of March 2010. The budget was fairly neutral with no new tax concessions proposed for this year. However, further relief in the form of old age grants and grants to orphans have been increased.
The highlights of the budget includes:
- Given the revenue outlook and considering the generous tax concessions granted under the 2009/10 budget, no new tax concessions are proposed this year;
- Additional allocations are made to increase old age grants to N$ 500 per month, while Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) grants are increased with N$ 30 per month;
- The school feeding programme was expanded now reaching some 160,000 OVCs in rural areas; this is to be boosted further under this MTEF (Medium Term Expenditure Framework for 2010/11 to 2012/13) to reach 200,000 OVCs by 2013;
- As a commitment towards keeping law and order an additional N$ 660 million is proposed to law enforcement agencies over the MTEF, bringing total funding for this sector to N$ 7.887 billion over the MTEF period;
- Additional funding to education will cater for educational infrastructures, and expand the financial assistance to students, strengthen vocational training, and the upgrading of the skills of our teachers. For this, an additional N$ 1.25 billion is provided to education over the MTEF bringing the total MTEF allocation for the sector to N$ 19.539 billion;
- The youth are the primary beneficiaries of the allocations to education, but over and above that, the vote for youth, culture and sport services receive an additional of N$ 113 million, bringing the total MTEF allocations to N$ 1.22 billion;
- Health will receive an additional N$ 366 million over the MTEF to strengthen the fight against HIV and Aids, TB and Malaria, as well as upgrade health infrastructure and equipments. The total allocation of health will increase to N$ 8.171 billion over the MTEF.
Spending in order of allocation :
- Ministry of Education N$ 6,47 billion, which is an increase of 20,5% on its budget last year;
- Ministry of Finance N$ 3,96 billion, of which N$ 1,3 billion is meant to service State debt;
- Ministry of Defense N$ 3,014 billion, which is an increase of 16% on its budget last year;
- Ministry of Health and Social Services N$ 2,59 billion, which is an increase of 7,9% on its budget last year;
- Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry N$ 1,5 billion, which is an increase of 23% on its budget last year;
The Ministry of Finance is set to inject the following into State-owned enterprises:
- Air Namibia N$ 80 million
- Transnamib N$ 83,9 million
- Nampower N$ 100 million
- Road Fund Administration N$ 100 million
- Agricultural Bank of Namibia N$ 60 million
- NamWater N$ 50 million
- Development Bank of Namibia N$ 50 million
Complete budget speech is attached below:
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