*N$1.4bn for student funding
*Youth, sport budget shoots up
*N$50m for stadium upgrade
*TransNamib gets N$175m
*ACC budget jumps to N$62.8m
*N$700m for road maintenance
* Freeze on non-critical recruitments
*N$50m for sovereign wealth fund
Edgar Brandt
Maihapa Ndjavera
Finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi yesterday tabled a N$61.5 billion budget for the 2022/23 financial year that indicated a total revenue projection of N$59.7 billion, some 11.7% higher than estimated revenue for the current financial year.
Over the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), revenue is expected to grow at an average pace of 6.7% to reach N$61.8 billion in the FY2023/24 and N$64.7 billion by 2024/25.
This is underpinned by the increase in receipts from the SACU Customs Revenue Pool and strengthening domestic revenues as the economy recovers over the period.
Expenditure is anticipated to increase to N$70.8 billion during 2022/23.
Shiimi dedicated this year’s budget to the youth and presented it under the theme of ‘Reimaging, a Better Future for the Youth’, which echoes President Hage Geingob’s theme for the year 2022.
As such, through this budget, government aims to focus on interventions specifically to uplift the youth through sports, entrepreneurship and targeted business financing.
The finance minister explained that through the youth theme, government aims to respond to some of the primary issues affecting them.
“We demonstrated our commitment as government to re-position public spending in line with urgent national needs, especially for the youth demographic,” said Shiimi, who expects the domestic economy to grow by 2.9% in 2022 before accelerating further to 3.7% in 2023.