Customs Union – Namibia chases equal share of revenue

APA News- Finance Minister Calle Schlettwein said Namibia will continue to push for smaller economies in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) to get a fair share of revenue from collective pool of trade tax

The SACU member states have been involved in negotiations with Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland unhappy about South Africa’s lion share of the shared revenue.“We are entitled to our SACU share and what we want is a situation where the sharing does not favour others. We want the gains and loses to be equally shared among member countries,” Schlettwein told journalists in Windhoek on Wednesday ahead of the SACU chair’s visit to Namibia on 11 May.

”There are different issues that have been tabled for discussion including the industrialisation policy, the revenue sharing formula among others” he said. “We are entitled to our share from the SACU pool and we want to find a way were we deal with the skewed sharing in a manner that benefit all member states,” Schlettwein said.

He said deliberations on the outstanding issues are currently ongoing at the secretariat level, while the heads of states of SACU member states are expected to meet at a later stage.

Revenue streams from the SACU pool makes up 40% of the Namibian budget. The minister was speaking ahead of the two-day state visit by King Mswati III of Swaziland, who is the chairman of SACU.

The Swazi king held talks with President Hage Geingob Thursday morning before visiting SACU’s headquarters in Windhoek.