The government spent over N$2 million on state and official funerals in the last financial year, Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has said. 

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila made this revelation in parliament while motivating her office’s budget of N$417 million for the 2021/22 financial year on Monday.

Accounting to some of the activities of the office during the previous financial year, the prime minister said her office spent an amount of N$2.2 million on state and official funerals, while an amount of N$751 000 was spent on the 30th Independence Day celebration that was held at State House. 

She said as part of disaster risk management, government mobilised resources from donations to complement state allocations to fight Covid-19. 

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said a dedicated Covid-19 bank account was opened into which an amount of N$52 million was raised through donations. 

She said government contributed an amount of N$63 million for non-medical Covid-related activities, in addition to the allocations made to the individual sectoral votes. 

According to her, the total expenditure for non-medical Covid-19 response amounts to N$57 million and was allocated to Covid food assistance during the lockdown, masks for vulnerable persons and logistics and transportation costs. 

Furthermore, she said an amount of N$15 million has been set aside to assist the fire victims at Twaloloka to purchase construction materials for new houses, and N$20 million was committed to fighting locust’s invasion across the country. 

During the 2019 drought, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said an amount of N$249 million was paid to all regional councils for water provision, as a resilience building measure.

Elaborating on the programmes for the financial year 2021/22, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said from the N$417 million allocated to her office N$394 million is for operational expenditures while N$23 million is for the development expenditure for the renovation of the United House building. 

- ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na