4 TOTAL REVENUE COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION

The DoF has produced a vision for the period 2001-2005. Among the seven vision statements, one is to have “National accounts reflecting the contribution of the forestry sector”. Therefore, there is a great and urgent need to establish a comprehensive database on revenue paid to government by the forestry sector in Namibia. Obviously, this is a long-term exercise, which can only be carried out with the assistance of international development partners.

The DoF has started to keep track of revenue from forest production through the recently established Forestry Permit System. However, this system will need to be expanded to include additional data on revenue generated from all areas of the forestry sector. This undoubtedly requires very close collaboration with all relevant stakeholders involved in collecting government revenue. Only in this way will information on revenue from the entire forestry sector be at the finger-tips of the Directorate and, thereby, become readily available to both government and the wider public.

4.1 Total collection and distribution of forest based charges

As mentioned earlier, it was not possible to find detailed data on the total amount of revenue collected by other institutions involved in the forestry sector. Therefore, the following tables only show the total revenue collected by the DoF between 1993-94 and 1999-00 (note that the financial year for the Government of Namibia runs from 1st April - 31st March).

Table 4 shows the revenue collected by the DoF during the 1993-94 financial year. Total revenue collected in this year amounted to N$ 937,590. During this period, the DoF operated sawmills at Katima Mulilo and Rundu, which accounts for the high level of revenue collected in those two districts. These two sawmills are no longer operational. In addition, it should be noted that the office in Gobabis was only opened during the financial year 1993-94 and did not, therefore, collect any revenue during this year.

Table 4 Total revenue collected by the Directorate of Forestry in 1993-94

Total revenue collection in 1994-95 amounted to N$ 209,347 (see Table 5). The figures for Katima Mulilo and Kanovlei include royalties from timber contracts. Timber contracts are the same as timber concessions, so these figures include the fees paid by the concessionaires to DoF.

Table 5 Total revenue collected by the Directorate of Forestry in 1994-95

Table 6 Total revenue collected by the Directorate of Forestry in 1997-98

During the 1997-98 financial year, the DoF collected N$ 447,934 in revenue (see Table 6). Other revenue shown in the table included the following:

§ Ongwediva - fines, sales of confiscated wood and sales of plantation poles;

§ Outapi - fines and sales from beekeeping (the DoF pilot Beekeeping Project, which has since finished);

§ Opuwo - sales of confiscated firewood; and

§ Keetmanshoop - sales of confiscated wood.

Table 7 Total revenue collected by the Directorate of Forestry in 1999-00

During the 1999-00 financial year, the DoF collected N$ 417,586 in revenue (see Table 7). This includes the sale of Pterocarpus angolensis (Mukwa) logs, which were confiscated from illegal cutters in Katima Mulilo and sold to the (now defunct) AMCOM sawmill. It also includes the rental of the old DoF sawmill shed to the agricultural farmers union for maize storage in Katima Mulilo.

Reports on revenue collection for the years 1995-96, 1996-97 and 1998-99 are not available. However, the results in Table 4 to Table 7 above show that annual revenue collection by DoF amounted to between N$ 209,347 and N$ 937,590. For comparison, during the 1993-94 fiscal year, the budget for the DoF was N$ 5,312,000 and today it is N$ 14,137,011. Therefore, the revenue collected by the DoF is far below the Directorate’s budget.

Although the amount of revenue collected by DoF is well below expenditure, it should be noted that the forest resources of Namibia have immense value in terms of their contributions in areas such as domestic energy supply, ecosystem and habitat value, crop fencing and in the arts and crafts industry (see Table 8 below). The value of all these activities is far greater than the current budget allocation for the forest administration, suggesting that an appropriately high level of public expenditure on the forest sector can be justified in terms of the DoF’s activities to protect and maintain this resource.

Table 8 Estimated total economic value of all forest outputs

Source: Strategic Plan 1997