The Kavango West Regional Development Coordinating Committee has concluded its deliberations on the budget allocation of close to N$400 million for the 2025/2026 financial year.
The Chief Regional Officer of Kavango West, Matheus Singambwe, welcomed the improved allocation but pointed out that more still needs to be done in terms of budget and financial distribution.
"The financial capital budget for 2025/2026 is nearly N$400 million; this allocation represents an improvement of approximately N$70 million compared to the previous financial year. Because if you look at our allocation in the past final year, it was N$322,000,288. This year, we have received about N$393,092,000, which is an increase of about N$7,804,000. We believe that this budget allocation from our national government represents a positive development."
Singambwe pointed out that decentralising services remains a problem, and most government services are still unavailable in the region.
Other issues include a lack of access to electricity, delayed payments for capital projects, and late disbursement of funds to regional councils.
While the budget allocations look promising on paper, the Director of Planning, Development, Monitoring, and Evaluation, Egidius Namabara, is concerned about whether the funds will be fully used.
"It all depends on whether the allocated funds, as per the MTEF document, are really implemented in the region. This is why we come together here to interrogate, to ask each and every ministry and each and every sector as to what they are busy with, or whether they have started implementing, or when they are going to implement the allocated budget for their specific sectors."
Kavango West is Namibia's youngest region, and its leaders believe more should be done to address historic imbalances and ensure fair representation in national development efforts.
"History did not favour this area, nor did the government. As it were, it was reported in the National Assembly in 1992, but now we see that the government is making some effort to address this, and we want to see these kinds of intentions to also go beyond the projects but also to assimilate and integrate more people from these areas into decision-making," said Control Admin Officer for the Ncuncuni Constituency, Joseph Likoro.