Mid-Term budget review a ‘proverbial dead horse’- Opposition party
During a National Assembly session this week, the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) (Former DTA) said that the recently tabled mid-term review is disappointing and disconcerting.
PDM Treasurer General and Member of Parliament, Nico Smit said that the structural problems are looming more than ever. Smit added that the Minister of Finance, Calle Schlettwein has not made one inch of progress to address the issues that led the country into a recession.
“The public sector wage bill has only continued on its vastly inflated trajectory and is budgeted to increase for every year in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. There is absolutely no reduction of the bloated civil service on the horizon, not in this year and not in the following three years despite all the undertakings given by the Finance Minister in October last year,” Smit added.
He said that Cabinet does not realise the severe constraints Namibia is facing from a budgetary and financing point of view, Smit added that the problems of late last year and early this year, where the country battled to find buyers for new government debt, will escalate.
“Interest payments will continue to rise, our government debt will become more expensive, and eventually we will no longer have access to funding. Our development dreams will then become what this mid-year review already hints at, lots of hot air, recklessness where expenditure is concerned and a future of begging instead of developing,” he said.
