All Namibian Public Enterprises (PEs) are valued at N.dollars 104 billion, Minister of Public Enterprise Leon Jooste has said.
Despite this, government has lost on average N.dollars 1 billion annually for the past six years on its PE portfolio.
Speaking at the launch of the Public Enterprise Financial Monitoring System (PE-FMS) online database here on Monday, Jooste said the overall amount includes N.dollars 66.2 billion for 25 commercial PEs; N.dollars 21.8 billion for 43 non-commercial PEs and N.dollars 16.8 billion for extra budgetary funds public enterprises.
Jooste stressed that the asset value of public enterprises is enormous as they are overly dependent on government subsidies and bailouts.
He explained that currently, the ministry’s focus is to transform public enterprises by re-modelling and re-aligning them to ensure business self-sustainability and reduce dependency on government subsidies.
“We have not been doing that well. We are crawling back slowly, hence as the ministry we decided to develop an online database, which can help the ministry in the governance of PEs through data informed decisions,” he noted.
Jooste said the ystem will enable the ministry to record and track performance, as well the compliance and accountability of PEs in efforts to position them as key contributors to Namibia’s economic growth.
At the same event, project manager at the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Dr John Steytler, said Namibia public enterprise business models should be geared towards sustainability in efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Steytler said GIZ has been assisting the ministry for the past three years to a tune of N.dollars 38 million in performance governance monitoring, digital monitoring and assessment of commercial PEs, stressing that the majority of PEs operate inefficiently and at a loss.
“The public sector plays a key role in the social economic development of Namibia, hence, the over-dependence of most PEs on the national budget calls for a drastic transformation,” he said.
Steytler further noted that Namibia’s national debt is approaching 70 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and is fast becoming unsustainable, noting that the number of loss-making PEs are increasing and have become more reliant on the national budget for financial support.
He singled out NamPower and MTC as the most productive public
Source: The Namibian Press Agency