The Namibian education sector, currently reeling under budget cuts, risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars in EU funding this year because of delays in providing crucial data needed to release the budgetary support grant, the Windhoek Observer can reveal.
This week, EU Ambassador to Namibia, Jana Hybaskova, expressed her disappointment with the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture for the delays, saying this will slow down the disbursement of funds and presents absorption capacity challenges, which could leave grant money undistributed at the end of the funding period.
Hybaskova’s remarks were in sharp contrast to statements made by the education minister, Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, who told the Windhoek Observer that no budgetary assistance had been received this financial year from development partners.
Ambassador Hybaskova told the Windhoek Observer that 24 million Euros (N$343,7 million) is available for Namibia, but delays by the education ministry in providing crucial data was threatening the funds’ disbursement as per an agreement signed at the end of 2016.
“Daily, you hear of the ministry of education complaining about the lack of funds for books, classrooms and other capital budget projects. So, we are quite proud that our support will be very timely. The whole amount being disbursed is 24 million Euros over three years, plus 3 million Euros for technical assistance.”
The Ambassador stated that EU money disbursement has a non-negotiable requirement for indicators to be fulfilled and data to be provided before the full amount of the grant is delivered.
EU fund managers have been pursuing Namibian officials for terms of reference (TORs), data and statistics on ongoing programmes and usage of monies already disbursed and information on indicators, all needed to complete the necessary reports before additional funds can be disbursed.
Oddly, the ministry of education last week forced schools to close a week earlier in a bid to save N$9 million due to budgetary constraints after the ministry’s budget was cut from N$12,32 billion in 2016/17 to N$11,97 billion in the 2017/18 budget announced in March, a reduction of N$350 million.
In an interview, Hanse-Himarwa conceded that the budget cuts will affect the ministry of education’s operations.
“We will not be able to really run all of our programmes in the fashion that we would have wanted to do it. It will impact implementation negatively. We have talked about improving textbook availability levels, but this will be affected by the budget cuts…Boarders in hostels will be affected,” the minister said.
“Technical subjects are very expensive to roll-out. It must be done as the nation has called for that, but it is expensive…Continuous teacher training must happen and it is expensive. ICT is affected by the budget cuts as well. All of these programmes are being affected negatively by budget cuts, but they have to be done. So we say, we do more with little.”
The EU commitment to support education in Namibia continues with €168 million (N$2.4 billion) in a total support package for all aspects of education in the 11th European Development Fund.
Of those funds, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture has been granted €24 million (N$344 million over three years, beginning in 2017) with an additional €3 million (N$43 million) made available for technical assistance.
While these funds are not a panacea to fully replace budget funds cut by the Minister of Finance, they can make a significant impact in terms of budget shortfalls that would occur otherwise.
The current tranche of funds to be disbursed in October or November are now likely to be delayed because of the missing data and also due to a last-minute change by Namibia of its technical assistance partner previously agreed when the arrangements were signed at the end of 2016.
According to the EU Ambassador, in spite of being informed of the procedural roadblock caused by such a late notice change that will delay disbursement of grant funds, the ministry of education insisted on it.
“We thought we would go with a service contract to a consultancy technical support provider (using the technical grant funds), while the ministry and National Planning Commission decided to modify their idea and specifically ask for a change to have UNICEF appointed as the service provider. But, for the EU, this is a substantial change and we have to go back through the hierarchy in Brussels to redo the entire contract. This will cause a substantial delay,” Ambassador Hybaskova said.
“When the service contract for a grant is changed, you cannot do it locally, all has to go back to EU member states for a new decision…This slows us,” the Ambassador added.
When asked why the change in technical service provider was made, the Ambassador said she was unaware of the ministry’s reasons.
The ministry of education chose to remain silent when asked why they had decided to change their technical partner in favour of UNICEF, post the signing of the agreement with the EU.
Development assistance requires that the recipient of the funds provide proof of how the money was used in exchange for additional funding.
“Here I must be absolutely clear: We are just following a formula - you want these funds; we need these administrative and statistical indicators,” Ambassador Hybaskova said.
“EU wants to continue its long record of support for education in Namibia. “
The EU has demonstrated its support to Namibia via past programs that granted billions of dollars for a wide range of educational support programs since independence.
The European regional block says it remains committed to assisting Namibia, particularly now with the current economic crisis.
“It is not that we tell Namibia what are the indicators; Namibia tells us what the Namibian indicators are, and then Namibia must be able to reach Namibian indicators itself. We are not able to disburse 100 percent of the funds available unless we meet all indicators and this is a challenge,” clarified Ambassador Hybaskova.
Tom Alweendo, Minister in the Presidency in charge of the National Planning Commission confirmed that the education ministry is responsible for supplying the outstanding data.
“The support will be given to [the ministry of] education but NPC will sign for it and hence, education will be responsible for the data,” said Alweendo.
Namibia’s development funding partnership with the EU stretches to the days just after independence, and their data and reporting requirements for the disbursement of funds are well known.
Many foreign development partners, who have funded various programs over the past two decades, have abandoned the country due to Namibia’s ‘graduation’ to an upper middle-income country, but the EU has remained committed to support the Government’s goals through various avenues.