There are concerns about frequent and excessive travelling by National Council officials and MPs over the past year, a trend that appears to have continued in the current one.

The National Council (NC) received a total budget of about N$120 million for the 2022/23 financial year.

Of this amount, about N$75 million was spent on salaries and other benefits while N$26 million was spent on daily subsistence and travel allowances (S&T) for MPs and officials.

The rest was spent on utilities and other expenses.

Tracing the council’s expenditure back to the 2016/17 financial year [FY], N$13.7 million was spent that year. 

During the next FY, the figure jumped to N$18.9 million. 

During the 2018/19 FY, the amount spent on S&T dropped to N$16.2 million. 

The amount dropped to N$14.8 million in 2019/20. It would drop sharply during the 2020/21 FY, at the height of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic which brought most government and private business’ functions to a standstill. That year, only N$6 million was spent on travel-related expenditure. 

What is alarming, however, is what the council spends on traveling-related expenditure, particularly on foreign trips.

Internally, MPs are at each other’s throats over the traveling, as some say only certain parliamentarians travel.

“How on earth [is it that] some people are travelling five times now while your colleague [have] not even [travelled] a single [time]?” NC member Laurentius Iipinge complained in a text seen by this paper, on a WhatsApp group titled ‘Chamber Related Matters’.

There are also concerns that some top officials would often squeeze themselves onto those trips even though only a personal assistant or clerk was needed.

According to insiders, top managers would personally ask to be included on the list of people travelling, when they notice that their names are not part of the planned trip.

Some of the trips attended could have been conducted via zoom, but officials opted to travel.

Chairperson

Based on this paper’s findings, NC chairperson Lukas Muha’s office spent about N$5 million on S&T for the 2022/23 financial year. Muha is deputised by Victoria Kauma.

Initially, Muha’s office received a budget of N$3.5 million for S&T.

It ended up spending an additional N$1.6 million in the same year, following the mid-term budget review.

The S&T allocated to this office is mainly meant to enable Muha and Kauma to attend various local and foreign events in line with their duties.

However, there are concerns that Muha has done most of the travelling, almost every month.

Muha referred all requests for comment to the NC secretary.

Necessary  

Responding to detailed questions, NC secretary, Tousy Namiseb justified the travelling.

He hastened to say the budget figures for Parliament, are debated openly and approved in the two houses of Parliament.

“The chairperson and the vice chairperson are doing different functions at the National Council. The functions are provided for in the Namibian Constitution. At the international level, the chairperson also has different functions from the vice chairperson. The chairperson has further been elected to executive committees of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), both at Africa and international levels. The chairperson is further part of various platforms for speakers at the international level,” Namiseb explained.

“The chairperson and the vice chairperson are not residents of Windhoek. Travelling to and back their respective regions, constituencies and Windhoek to perform duties required comes with cost. This is a constitutional provision and arrangement that ought to be honoured in its current form,” Namiseb further explained.

Namiseb added: “Except the chairperson and vice chairperson, the rest of the members of the National Council are appointed to standing committees of the National Council who also perform various functions.  Since all members are constituency-based, their travel from various regions to Windhoek comes at a cost. For example, a two-week session costs around N$700 000.”

Secretary

In addition, Namiseb’s own office is also a huge spender on S&T. It initially received N$500 000 for S&T for the year under review. However, the office ended up spending N$3 million after it received an additional N$2.5 million.

This mainly went to Namiseb, who travels abroad often. The administration division, which has more staff, only spent N$2.7 million on S&T.

Asked if taxpayers derived any return on investment on what the council spent on travelling, Namiseb had several achievements to point to.

“Very soon, the Parliament of Namibia will debate what is now named the Regional and Constituency Development Fund Bill (RCDF) aimed at allocating financial resources for development programmes at constituency and local authority level. The proposal that was approved by the Cabinet came about as a result of benchmarking with other jurisdictions,” Namiseb said.

He added: “Recently, the vice chairperson [Kauma] of the National Council together with the Speaker of the National Assembly [Peter Katjavivi] led the Parliament of Namibia delegation to the 146th IPU Assembly in The Kingdom of Bahrain where the two signed a cooperation agreement with the IPU. The agreement is aimed at funding capacity building undertakings for the advancement of gender equality in Namibia.

“[Muha] also led the Parliament of Namibia delegation to the recently concluded Russia-Africa Parliamentary Conference and was followed by the signing of the cooperation agreement between the National Council and the Federal Council of the Russian Federation. The said cooperation agreement will include building capacity of both MPs and staff of the National Council.”

He was not done

“After benchmarking with the senate of the parliament of Rwanda, they proposed the creation of a friendship group and to enter into a cooperation agreement that will see the two houses sharing best practices. We are also advancing parliamentary diplomacy.

“Some members of Parliament and staff are fortunate to serve on various structures of these international bodies. With that international exposure and experience gained, they will be able to champion Namibian’s parliamentary diplomacy stance.”

Juxtaposition 

So far this year, the NC spent N$3.1 million in travel-related expenditure on inter-parliamentary organisations’ activities.

They include the Pan-African Parliament, SADC Parliamentary Forum, Southern African Development Community Organisation of Public Accounts Committees, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. 

“As technocrats, we are under pressure from our MPs. They all just want to travel out of the country when the problems they were elected for are here. Maybe former minister [Bernhardt] Esau was right that S&T is lucrative for parliamentarians and ministers.

Even when it comes to benchmarking, they want to go to Asia or Europe, instead of countries like Botswana and others with similar demographics. The money they spent on travelling can easily be used to even change the lives of street kids that we see in Windhoek every day,” a senior administrator at Parliament said recently. - emumbuu@nepc.com.na