WINDHOEK: Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises, Iipumbu Shiimi, has tabled the N.dollars 75 billion 2023/24 mid-term budget review, which includes an additional expenditure of N.dollars 4.8 billion, targeting unforeseeable and unavoidable emergencies.

Tabling the Mid-term 2023/24 Financial Year (FY) budget here in Parliament on Tuesday, Shiimi said the ministry adopted a broad policy of prioritising only unforeseeable and unavoidable emergencies at mid-term, following an expenditure request amounting to N.dollars 5.3 billion by ministries and agencies that was received for consideration.

He indicated the Appropriated Amendment Bill amount of N.dollars 72 596 743 000 increased to N.dollars 75 069 057 000 due to unforeseeable and unavoidable emergency items which were are unable to be postponed until the tabling of the 2024/25 financial year’s main budget.

Shiimi explained that the amended amount includes an increase to the operational budget of N.dollars 66.1 billion by 2.5 billion, while the development budget remained unchanged at N.dollars 6.5 billion and N.dollars 2.3 billion was added to the debt servicing and honouring of contingent liabilities.

Highlighting the allocations, he said a total of N.dollars 643 million to supplement the drought relief provisions under the Office of the Prime Minister, while N.dollars 438.5 million has been added on the goods and services budgets including, among others, N.dollars 290 million to the Ministry of Health and Social Services; N.dollars 25 million to the Ministry of Justice, as well as N.dollars 17 million to the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.

Equally, the ministry has allocated an additional N.dollars 14.5 million to the Ministry of Sports, Youth and National Service and N.dollars 1.2 billion for subsidies and other transfers to Government organisations inclusive of N.dollars 376.3 million to cover shortfalls on student funding at NSFAF; N.dollars 230 million to support TransNamib operations; N.dollars 200 million to meet an anticipated deficit on the Public Servants Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS); N.dollars 105.3 million to supplement the contingency budget and N.dollars 87.5 million for Namibia’s contribution to the deployment of the SADC mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And an additional N.dollars 602.8 million has been set aside for statutory payments to honour calls on loan guarantees.

“These were the items we deemed unforeseeable and unavoidable and warranted additional allocation from the available resources. Nevertheless, we have broadly not reduced the initial ceilings of most expenditure votes despite noting low implementation rate during the first half of the year, particularly on personnel expenditure due to the slow pace of recruitment,” he noted.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency