NPC under scrutiny as capital spend lags

The National Planning Commission (NPC) has defended its role in overseeing government development spending, as persistent under-execution of capital projects again came under scrutiny in the 2025/26 Mid-Year Budget Review.

Responding to questions from Network Media Hub (NMH), NPC spokesperson Maria Kandjungu said the commission is legally mandated to formulate and monitor the development budget, with particular emphasis on capital projects across government.

Her response follows the tabling of the 2025/26 mid-year budget review in Parliament in October last year by finance minister Ericah Shafudah, which once again highlighted weak execution rates on development spending.

Monitoring and evaluation 

Kandjungu said the NPC tracks the allocation and utilisation of development funds through financial monitoring, engagements with offices, ministries and agencies (OMAs), as well as on-the-ground verification. She said budget utilisation is assessed through execution-rate analysis, comparing funds appropriated for specific projects with actual expenditure.

“OMAs submit quarterly project reports to the NPC, indicating implementation progress, expenditure levels and challenges affecting delivery,” Kandjungu said. She added that further monitoring is conducted bi-annually through the commission’s Monitoring and Evaluation department to track progress under the Sixth National Development Plan (NDP6).

According to the mid-year budget review, as of September 2025 total expenditure and commitments, excluding statutory spending, amounted to N$41 billion, representing 39% of the budgeted amount. This marked a decline from the 43% execution rate recorded during the same period in the previous financial year.

The slower pace of spending was particularly evident in capital projects, prompting the reallocation of N$826.4 million from low-performing programmes.

Shafudah told Parliament that low execution rates on capital projects necessitated shifting funds to priority areas where absorption capacity was stronger, while keeping the overall appropriation unchanged at N$89.4 billion for the year. As a result, the development budget was revised downward from N$9.6 billion to N$8.8 billion, a reduction of just over 9%.

Mid-year as a corrective measure 

Kandjungu said one of the key corrective tools available to government is the mid-year budget review, which assesses performance in the first half of the financial year and allows for recommendations, including the reallocation of funds away from underperforming activities.

“These analyses help identify delays, under-spending or bottlenecks throughout the financial year, and inform Cabinet through annual project and National Development Plan performance reports,” she said.

She stressed that underperformance is not confined to specific ministries, but represents a systemic challenge across government, often linked to capacity constraints, procurement delays, legal challenges in tender processes and other external factors. According to the NPC, accountability for under-spending is shared between implementing OMAs and the commission itself, with emphasis placed on resolving constraints rather than assigning blame.

Execution 

Weak execution has been a recurring theme in Namibia’s public finance debates. In December last year, Swapo parliamentarian and former finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi warned that accountability must be elevated to the highest level if national development goals are to be met.

Speaking during a public discussion, Shiimi said Namibia suffers not from a lack of plans, but from poor coordination and weak oversight during implementation. He argued that coordination mechanisms often operate too low in the hierarchy, allowing commitments to be ignored without consequence.

“What has been a weakness is that coordination was not happening at a high enough level,” Shiimi said, contrasting this with the green hydrogen programme, which he said benefited from direct reporting to the President, ensuring alignment and momentum.