Welcome to the Garden of Eden — no, not the biblical one with serpents and apples, but the Namibian Football Association (NFA), where the fruit is so plentiful everyone seems to be feasting… except the taxman. Let’s cut straight to the compost heap: the NFA owes N$1.5 million in unpaid taxes to NamRA. Yes, that’s right — one-point-five million. And no, it’s not because they forgot. It’s because, despite deducting Pay As You Earn (PAYE) from employees’ salaries, they somehow forgot to pay it to NamRA.
One wonders, where did it all go? into football boots? new suits? a secret NFA staff retreat on the moon?This isn’t just a case of misplacing coins in couch cushions, this is N$420 903 in unpaid capital, N$564 755 in penalties, and N$159 373 in interest. That’s the financial equivalent of burning your house down and then asking your neighbour for a lighter. Now here’s the kicker: the poor NFA employees were shocked to learn they didn’t qualify for NamRA’s much-celebrated tax refunds last year. Why? Because their ‘paid taxes’ never made it past the garden gate. It’s like buying a ticket for a flight that never took off and being told you should’ve brought your own plane. But let’s not despair. Our beloved NFA is hoping to join the tax amnesty programme. That means penalties and interest might be waived. Kind of like a student pleading for a do-over after failing to submit a year’s worth of assignments because their dog ate it. And yet, the garden blooms. Fifa handed over N$49 million. CAF threw in another N$25 million. De Beers glimmered with N$19 million. Even our government ploughed in N$12 million. Altogether, it’s a delicious cocktail of almost N$100 million in revenue — with sprinkles from PstBet, the president himself, and even the humble Namibian Newspaper Cup (which brought in a charming N$61 780.
But oh, how the money flies! The men’s national team got a tasty N$25.7 million slice of the pie. The women’s team? Just N$14 million. Debmarine Premier League? N$17 million. Development courses? A modest N$2.7 million and conferences and meetings? N$1.8 million. Seriously — what are they transporting to these meetings? Gold-plated whiteboards? Maybe they are paying transport cost for people to attend these nice meetings. What about Zoom guys! Let’s not forget the mysterious N$2 million in member debts that were quietly written off. To their credit, Fifa is tossing another N$64 million their way from now till 2026. But do we know what plans the NFA has for this funding? Referee courses? Organisational operations? Word in the corridors is that the government will refurbish the NFA Technical Centre and the dilapidating turn which has seen better days, so what’s the real use of the Fifa funds? Is someone building a golden goalpost behind the scenes? I really want to know, because questions to the NFA get a blue tick and nothing else. I want to know so that I can inform myself and the nation. So, while the financial harvest at football house seems abundant, there’s a worm in the apple – governance. Accountability. Transparency. You know, the boring stuff that actually keeps organisations upright.In this version of Eden, the forbidden fruit isn’t an apple — it’s an audited financial statement. And biting into it might just leave you with a nasty case of tax indigestion.
Limba Mupetami is a senior reporter at the New Era and writes in her own capacity.