By: Julia Heita
Although the education ministry tops the country’s budget allocation list for the next fiscal year, the biggest chunk goes to salaries.
Education executive director Sanet Steenkamp told The Villager that the ministry does not have qualified reports for finances.
A qualified audit report is issued when an auditor picks up discrepancies in an entity’s financial books. In contrast, an unqualified audit reflects business financial statements that are transparent and compliant with generally accepted accounting principles.
“The only qualified reports we get is not in compliance because we overspend on salaries,” she said.
This comes as the ministry last year received an unqualified audit opinion from Auditor-General Junias Kanjeke.
However, he indicated that the ministry underspent its budget by N$21 million in 2020.
Steenkamp added that the ministry needs to make sure that they must prioritise teacher capacitation regardless of insufficient funding.
This year, the ministry scooped N$14.1 billion in the 2022/23 financial budget.
Steenkamp expressed that the ministry does its level best with its resources.
She also stated that the ministry’s capital project budget had been reduced to N$300 million.
“We have running projects that must be finalised and mean that we cannot embrace and launch new projects. It also means that the basic education facility we send to the regions is extremely insufficient.”
Commenting on the criticism by politicians, Steenkamp said the same politicians that criticise the ministry should reflect deeply along on the partnership, the role players and the stakeholders’ accountability.
“If every politician that is criticising us, and every single parent and civil society organisation have been involved with the ministry right throughout the year, we wouldn’t year-after-year sit and try to explain things that people, in any case, do not take the time for to internalise.”
Landless People’s Movement (LPM) member of parliament Utaara Mootu said that the education ministry is worth topping the budget.
“The problem is not the budget. The problem is the minister. The minister must go. The strategy they are using is not working for the learners, and it’s not working for the nation,” she stressed.
Mootu said there are a lot of gaps that need to be filled in the education system and must ensure that the budget looks at a robust campaign to ensure to revive and reform the education system.
