National Assembly (NA) Speaker Peter Katjavivi has urged the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises to look into the challenges of insufficient budgetary allocations that lead to the request for additional funding from treasury.

Motivating the N.dollars 120,407,000 budgetary allocation of the National Council (NC) for the 2023/2024 Financial Year(FY) in the NA on Friday, Katjavivi said: “It is important that while we articulate successes we should also highlight some challenges that confronted us during our journeys such as the challenges of insufficient budgetary allocations that always lead to the request of additional funding from treasury and the allocation of such additional funds at the time when various critical activities could hardly be implemented according to the original schedule.”

The NC for the FY 2022/23 was allocated N.dollars 91,933,000 for its operational activities before an additional allocation of N.dollars 10,967,000 was allocated during the Mid-Year Budget Review.

Katjavivi told the House that the budget allocation of N.dollars 120,407,000 for the 2023/2024 FY, will cover the council’s operational activities under three main activities which consist of Strengthen Capacity of Review and Oversight, Parliamentary Coordination and Support Services and Specialized and Support Services.

Strengthen Capacity of Review and Oversight will be allocated N.dollars 13,922,000, whereas Parliamentary Coordination and Support Services will be N.dollars 30,428,000 and Specialized and Support Services will be allocated N.dollars 62,708,000.

Katjavivi added a new activity to be known as the Office of the Secretary under the same programme of Legislative Support Services has been created and will enable the Secretary of the NC to carry out his/her responsibilities effectively and efficiently as outlined in Article 73A (2) of the Namibian Constitution.

For this activity, N.dollars 13,349,000 was allocated, he concluded.

Source: Namibia News Agency