The government has collected over N.dollars 500 million from environmental levies between 2016 and 2021.

The environmental levy allows for a charged fee respectively on imported products such as electric filament lamps, carbon dioxide emissions of specific vehicles, tyres, batteries and plastic bags under the amended Customs and Excise Act of 1998.

Equally the levy is designed to generate revenue that can be re-invested in environmental protection as well as to reduce the impact of environmentally damaging consumption or production activities.

Responding to Nampa’s questions, the recently launched Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) manager for communications and stakeholders engagement, Tonateni Shidhudhu, said a total of N.dollars 542 339 1670 was collected between July 2016 and June 2021.

Shidhudhu indicated that the government was able to collect the monies unchallenged as most of the manufacturers of these products are outside Namibia and do comply with the environmental levy regulations as imposed on such products.

However, he noted, some local traders that produce plastic bags were not registered as manufacturers with NamRA or previously the Ministry of Finance to enable the levy on plastic bags to be accurately collected at source.

“We have carried out the verification audit to determine the value of plastic production locally and the levy paid to the government, there is a level of compliance and we are confident that this levy is serving its intended purpose,” he noted.

The money collected from the environmental levies is handed over to the Environmental Investment Fund to finance the environmental expenditures of Fifth National Development Plan (NDP5) implementation.

Source: Namibia Press Agency