OSHIKUKU – The councillor for Oshikuku Constituency, Modestus Amutse, has warned that the national budget may not make an impact on poverty reduction and service delivery if the government continues to be reluctant to act on budget implementers who underspend.
He said there is an urgent need to reduce chains of bureaucracy in the approval of development activities within the public sector, while too late allocation of budgets to various functions by ministries also needs to be addressed in order to speed up implementation of budget plans.
Amutse was speaking at Petrus Iilonga Combined School in Oshikuku Constituency, where in his personal capacity he donated six computers and printers to the school library last week.
He called for extra commitment and patriotism by all civil servants to support President Hage Geingob’s aim of alleviating poverty and underdevelopment.
He said concerted efforts should be a national responsibility to assure success of the national goals and objectives, adding that people at grassroots level should be consulted to present their development needs through regional councils.
Amutse who commended the budget said the fact that millions of dollars go back to treasury unspent every year poses a question whether money has always been the problem to implement much-needed development, or whether a lack of commitment to use allocated money to address various needs of the people has been the problem.
The fact that most regional development activities are funded and remote controlled from central government also presents a systematic delay in control over implementation of the budget.
“My comrades, let’s support our President in his efforts to address underdevelopment. I do not want to see a typical situation where a hospital orders matrasses then the process takes too long to the detriment that when the matresses eventually arrive the beds on which they were supposed to be placed have been worn out, and when the hospital orders beds for these matrasses, the time the beds arrive after a very long time of waiting the matrasses have again been worn out. This literally means that we allow needs to develop into new demand when the bureaucratic chain is too long. Let alone if those serving there do not have a sense of patriotism towards their fellow country men and women,” elaborated Amutse.
Petrus Iilonga Combined School is one of six schools in Oshikuku Constituency that received computers and printers from Amutse in support of education development.