Damning findings in audit of drought-relief programme

Drought-relief intervention was not provided to registered beneficiaries during their time of need, while food was not provided on a monthly basis and in the required amount.

These are but some of the findings in a performance audit report on the management of Namibia’s drought relief programme for the two drought-declared financial years 2015/2016 and 2019/2020, with an extension until March 2022.

The programme falls under the ambits of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and the agriculture ministry.

According to the report by Auditor-General Junias Kandjeke, the audit noted that vulnerability assessments were conducted by the OPM through the Namibia Vulnerability Assessment Committee prior to implementing the drought-relief programme for the response periods under review.

The assessments were necessary to determine the number of the population affected by the drought who needed food assistance and livelihood interventions. It was also used to develop selection criteria for the identification of food-insecure households for beneficiary targeting.

According to the report, during 2015/2016, the vulnerability assessment covered all the rural zones of the country in all 14 regions, while in the 2019/2020 drought period, only 1 833 (55%) of 3 300 rural households and 1 028 (60%) of 1 695 urban households were targeted for assessment in 12 regions.

The Karas and Khomas regions were not assessed during 2019/2020 drought period.

Numbers don’t add up

The assessments estimated that in 2015/2016, the beneficiaries for drought relief would total 578 480 and in 2019/2020, 257 383.

However, the actual registered beneficiaries for 2015/2016 were 578 480 and 908 018 in 2019/2020.

The audit further noted that food was not distributed on a monthly basis as required.

According to the report, more people were registered because traditional authorities did not adhere to the set criteria during the registration process. The criteria were also not well communicated, which caused misinterpretation and therefore people who did not qualify were registered and distributed with drought-relief food.

Meanwhile, “food was not received from the suppliers on a monthly basis”.

In addition, food was also not distributed in full packages, which included cooking oil, maize meal and tinned fish, as some items took a long time to arrive to the regional councils’ warehouses, resulting in them distributing whatever they received.

Extensive delays

Distribution was mainly done by community members with no supervision from either the constituency or regional council offices, the audit noted.

There were also extensive delays in processing farmers’ claims with regards to livelihood interventions.

Fodder provided by government got spoiled before it was distributed to farmers, it said.

Furthermore, it was found that the OPM did not adequately monitor the implementation of the programme.

“Although the OPM conducted field visits during 2019/2020, the challenges highlighted in the reports were fact-finding, with no recommendations and no indication of responding to these challenges.”

Progress reports on the implementation of the programme were not produced regularly, while an impact assessment was also not conducted to determine its efficiency and effectiveness to inform future planning, the audit noted.