The Director of Forestry has final responsibility for preparing the Directorate’s annual budget, while the Deputy Director for Forest Management Division compiles the detail of the DoF budget each year. First, the Regional Offices with the District Forest Offices prepare and submit their draft budgets to the Deputy Director. Then the Deputy Director drafts a budget for the whole DoF, which is discussed and finalised with the Director of Forestry. The draft DoF budget is then submitted to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, who combines all of the budgets of the Ministry’s Directorates into a single Ministerial Budget.
The Ministerial Budget is discussed by the respective Directors under the Chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary. When agreed upon and approved by the Minister of Environment and Tourism, the budget is submitted to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance then prepares a draft annual budget for all Government Ministries and presents this to Parliament, where it is scrutinised and debated, Ministry by Ministry. When the budget is approved by parliament, the Ministry of Finance is authorised to disburse funds for expenditure to and by the relevant ministries.
Table 9 Budget of the Directorate of Forestry 1999 - 2002
Item |
Amount by year (in thousand N$) | ||||
1999-00 |
2000-01 |
2001-02 |
2002-03 (est.) |
2003-04 (est.) | |
Personnel expenditure |
10,612 |
10,957 |
11,185 |
12,300 |
13,530 |
Goods and other services |
3,096 |
2,610 |
2,700 |
4,573 |
5,000 |
Subsidies and other current transfers |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
11 |
Total recurrent expenditure |
13,718 |
13,577 |
13,895 |
16,883 |
18,541 |
Acquisition of capital assets |
1,131 |
560 |
800 |
1,000 |
500 |
Total Forestry Budget |
14,849 |
14,137 |
14,695 |
17,883 |
19,041 |
The State is the main source of funding for the DoF budget and this money is provided through the Ministry of Finance, following standard government procedures. At present, the DoF budget is about N$ 14 million per year and it has been more or less the same for the past three years (see Table 9). However, it is expected to increase to about N$ 18 million in the next two years because most of the professional posts in the DoF are still vacant. As more Namibian staff complete their BSc degree programmes, they will fill the vacant positions, new offices and housing for forestry sub-stations will be constructed (e.g. at Omega and Nkurenkuru) and additional vehicles will be needed. This accounts for the need for additional funds for salaries and capital expenditure.
The DoF does not keep any money raised through the forest revenue system and there are no special forestry funds. All of the revenue collected by DoF goes to the Ministry of Finance (as is the case with all government institutions). This money is pooled within the Ministry of Finance and then allocated to various ministries through the agreed national budget.
In addition to the national budget, the DoF has also received foreign assistance. The amount of foreign assistance to the DoF from 1990 to 2000 is shown in Table 10. The total contribution during the period was just under N$ 88 million, with the biggest contribution from Finland (accounting for 63 percent of the total).
Table 10 Foreign assistance to the Directorate of Forestry 1999 - 2000
Project |
Country |
Years |
Total, N$ | |
(in N$) |
(in percent) | |||
National Remote Sensing Centre |
Denmark |
1993-96 |
3,000,000 |
3.42 |
Vegetation Mapping |
Sweden |
1993-96 |
4,721,000 |
5.38 |
Institutional Strengthening |
Finland |
1991-96 |
4,100,000 |
4.67 |
Forest Inventory |
Finland |
1995-96 |
3,300,000 |
3.76 |
Forest Fire Control |
Finland |
1996 |
900,000 |
1.03 |
National Tree Seed Centre |
Canada |
1994-00 |
2,800,000 |
3.19 |
Forest Research and Development |
UK |
1994-97 |
3,510,000 |
4.00 |
Kavango Forestry Support |
Luxemburg |
1994-97 |
1,692,000 |
1.93 |
Support to Forestry Sector |
Australia |
1995-97 |
1,500,000 |
1.71 |
North Central Community Forestry |
Denmark |
1997-99 |
6,765,000 |
7.71 |
Volunteer Services to Forestry |
Germany |
1995-99 |
7,490,000 |
8.53 |
Namibia-Finland Forestry Programme |
Finland |
1997-00 |
48,000,000 |
54.68 |
Total from 1990 to 2000 |
87,778,000 |
100.00 | ||
The National Forestry Research Centre (NFRC) is located at Okahandja, 70 Km north of Windhoek. Forest Research is a Division within the DoF and the budget for the NFRC is part of the entire DoF budget shown in Table 9 above. The budget for the NFRC is about N$ 255,000 or 1.7 percent of the total DoF budget (see Table 11), plus expenditure on personnel (which is included under the main DoF budget). This budget is inadequate to enable DoF to carry out an adequate amount of forestry research.
Table 11 Budget of the National Forestry Research Centre at Okahandja
Item |
Budget for 2001-02 (in N$) |
Travel & subsistence (domestic) |
34,000 |
Materials and supplies |
60,000 |
Transport |
132,000 |
Utilities |
16,500 |
Other services and expenditure |
12,500 |
Total |
255,000 |
Diploma level forestry training is carried out at Ogongo Agricultural College (OAC), which is an institution that primarily offers diploma courses in Agriculture. In collaboration with the DoF, the OAC established a Department of Forestry to offer, initially, a 2-year certificate course in forestry. Now, the Department of Forestry also offers a 3-year diploma course in forestry. The OAC is under the Directorate of Research and Training in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development and the budget for the OAC is summarised in Table 12.
Table 12 Budget of the Department of Forestry at Ogongo Agricultural College
Item |
Budget for 2001-02 (in N$) |
Personnel (teachers) |
400,000 |
Student costs |
50,000 |
Materials and supplies |
30,000 |
Transport |
120,000 |
Utilities |
100,000 |
Other services and expenditure |
15,000 |
Total |
715,000 |
There are no grants or subsidies offered to companies formally registered and operating in the forestry sector. However, wood carvers and retail traders in wood carvings (who are considered as part of the informal sector) are normally not taxed. This could be considered as a subsidy from the Government to encourage self-employment and income generation at the grassroots level.
Namibia’s four long-term national objectives are:
§ Reviving and sustaining economic growth
§ Creating employment opportunities
§ Alleviating poverty
§ Reducing inequalities in incomes
Hence, wood carvers and traders in wood carvings are engaged in creating employment opportunities, thereby alleviating poverty, which is in line with the Government’s national objectives.
There are currently no state forestry enterprises operating in Namibia, as the only one that existed was recently privatised (at a value of N$ 5 million). The objectives of government involvement in state forestry enterprises are usually job creation and the development of value-added processing. It seems that the government’s involvement in this enterprise was contradictory to its policy of promoting private enterprise, which resulted in the privatisation of this enterprise.
It must be noted that privatisation of state enterprises does not necessarily lead to sustainable forest management. All it does is reduce government expenditure on unprofitable parastatal companies. In most cases, the nature of such companies is that, even if they make losses, government funds them to keep people in employment. However, in the long run this is a significant drain on government finances.
