Off the wire
Spanish stock market rises 0.40 pct  • African intelligence bodies call for efforts against foreign terrorists  • Consumer watchdog seizes expired food products in central Zambia  • Ford, GM lead self-driving development  • Tanzania launches new platform to improve energy sector development  • Namibian education ministry undertakes public expenditure review  • Reported use of chemical weapons in Syria alarming: WHO  • Roundup: East Africa bloc set to adopt harmonized tourism master plan  • German government proposes legislation to fine fake news and hate speech  • Former Greek minister to be released on bail due to health reasons  
You are here:   Home

1st LD Writethru: Namibian education ministry undertakes public expenditure review

Xinhua, April 5, 2017 Adjust font size:

The Namibian Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture is undertaking a public expenditure review to ensure that the ministry has efficiency measures in place to promote funds accountability for value addition amidst budget cuts.

This was revealed by Minister Katrina Hanse-Himarwa on Wednesday at the National Assembly during her budget motivation speech.

According to Hanse-Himarwa, in spite of the negative effects of the budget cuts, the ministry fully supports the objective of fiscal consolidation as a catalyst to financial sustainability in the long run.

However, the budget cuts will negatively affect the implementation of the information communication technology (ICT) programme, especially the roll out of ICT equipment to educational institutions, she said.

"Deployment of information communication technology to schools is still a difficult process because most of the schools are not electrified in rural areas and low internet connectivity remains a challenge," she said.

The ministry' budget ceiling was reduced by 3 percent, from 12.3 billion Namibian dollars in the 2016/17 financial year, to 11.9 billion Namibian dollars (910 million U.S. dollars) in 2017/18 financial year.

As part of the review process, set to be concluded later in the year, the ministry has reduced and in some cases ceased non-productive expenditures such as travelling allowances, furniture procurement and overtime.

The recruitment process, according to Hanse-Himarwa, is also closely monitored to ensure that only critical and budgeted vacancies are filled and secondly to ensure that the wage bill that is taking 85 percent of the ministerial budget allocation is not expanded. Endit