N$260m from disaster fund unaccounted for

Auditor-General (AG) Junias Kandjeke has set the scene on the teetering financial affairs of the country’s emergency fund - including how hundreds of millions cannot be accounted for and funds were used for unintended purposes.The National Disaster Fund, which resorts under the Office of the Prime Minister, has been unable to explain injections into the fund to the tune of over N$260 million, as no paper trail exists with regards to the payment of these monies. “The auditors traced transaction amounts of N$210 million (2014), N$52 million (2015) and N$1.1 million (2017) from the general ledger to the bank statements; however, these transactions could not be verified as no supporting documentation was provided,” the AG said. Despite being set up to fund government’s efforts to bankroll disasters, the National Disaster Fund has found itself running recurrent deficits, with the last surplus being recorded in 2016, the AG report into its activities for 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 showed. Deficit on deficitGovernment pumped N$409 million into the fund in 2014. This was, however, insufficient to cover its operations, with it recording an N$42.3 million deficit that year. This was due to its expenses, which totalled N$466 million. In 2015, the fund reported another deficit to the tune of N$9.3 million, despite a N$130 million government injection. For that year, expenses totalled N$152 million. The National Disaster Fund was able to record a surplus of N$326 million in 2016, as a consequence of a significant government subsidy totalling N$650 million and donation income to the tune of N$51.8 million, which was sufficient to cover its N$382 million expense bill that year. It then recorded yet another deficit of N$317 million in 2017 when it received a cash injection of N$135 million in the form of a government subsidy, N$76 million in donation income and N$16.7 million in finance income - markedly lower than its operating expenses of N$545 million. A breakdown of its donation income shows that the local contributions into the fund totalled N$19 million in 2017, with N$55 million coming from foreign donors. The disaster fund also received N$740 500 from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis Fund.

N$260m from disaster fund unaccounted for

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-02

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N$260m from disaster fund unaccounted for

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-02

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