Budget hits and misses

There have been quite a number of positives from the 2018/19 national budget presented to parliament on Wednesday by finance minister Calle Schlettwein.

While decrying high levels of corruption, the huge public wage bill and the perpetual bailouts of state-owned enterprises, Schlettwein highlighted that the budget was a funding compact for growth, bringing about jobs, less inequality, less poverty and improved service delivery. The finance minister has particularly been credited for seeking to diversify the economic base through the collection of more revenue from unlikely sources like religious bodies and charity organisations. This was long overdue. Another positive is the fact that government has managed to rein in quite substantially the spending on global and domestic travel with only N$221.8 million allocated in this year's budget compared to the N$634.3 million allocation in the 2015/16 financial year. It has committed to spending a lot of money within the crucial education sector. It is also so refreshing to hear that government has collected a total of N$972.02 million from the recovery of outstanding tax through the tax arrears recovery incentive programme initiated last year. There are, however, misgivings as to whether this budget primarily addresses the concerns of poor Namibians and the thousands of young people sitting at home without jobs. The ridiculous spending on defence, which currently stands at N$6 billion in the new financial year, continues unabated. This big-spending trend is highly skewed given other pressing priorities such as lack of affordable land and housing that the nation is grappling with. The minister was actually at pains to explain why such a huge amount has been allocated to defence once more. Things are simply not adding up. The time has come for government to fully account as far as the defence budget is concerned. There must be a transparent process, which includes making actual spending readily available to the public. The status quo has resulted in more questions than answers and there is a need to have an open and visible process, with reasons for spending clearly outlined. The perpetual excuse of 'national security' is a flimsy veil.

It should not be business as usual.