International bodies have strongly recommended that the government increases its funding to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in order to strengthen its capacity and skills to effectively combat corruption and money laundering.
“Namibia has been undergoing the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) and United Nations Financial Action Task Force (FATF) evaluation. The evaluators strongly recommend that Namibian Government must increase its funding to ACC and also strengthen capacities and skills of national law enforcement agencies to effectively combat corruption and money laundering,” National Assembly Speaker Peter Katjavivi said during his motivation of the budgetary allocation of the Anti-Corruption Commission.
“The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) report of September 2022 further recommended that adequate operational capacity (financial, human and technical resources) be provided to Law Enforcement Agencies.
“These resources should include attracting and retaining skilled staff and expertise especially financial investigators and specialised continuous training on high end/complex financial investigations and prosecution including parallel financial investigations and effective application of special investigative techniques.”
Katjavivi said the failure to sufficiently fund the ACC had the negative effect of driving away investors.
“Allow me to reiterate and emphasise that the impact of corruption is severe if it is allowed to persist. It impacts negatively on economic growth, healthcare, social and economic infrastructure development. Foreign Investors may not invest in Namibia if ACC is not financially empowered to curb corruption and related crimes,” he said.
Although pleased with the recent increase in the ACC budget allocation, Katjavivi was concerned that remuneration consumed a larger chunk of the funds, thus leaving little to effectively conduct investigations.
The ACC for the 2023/24 financial year was allocated N$81,688,000, a slight increased from the N$73,971,000 in the previous year.
Of the total budget allocation, N$29.77 million is earmarked for the investigation division which is the cornerstone of the Commission, of which N$25.87 million is for remuneration and related expenditure, which caters for investigating officers’ travel expenses when conducting investigations in other regions.
“It is evident from the above that 87% of the budget allocation for this main division goes to remuneration and related expenditure. It is worth mentioning that this main division is one crucial components of the Commission, that of investigation.
“Looking at the percentage of total allocation, only 11% remains that is used to carry out investigations. We all know how expensive and cumbersome the process of investigations can be. I therefore will appeal that we look at how best we can fund ACC in order for it to allocate more resources to this main division,” the National Assembly Speaker said.
The rest of the funds are allocated to the department of public education, N$15 million, security and risk management, N$2.88 million, administration, wi N$29.79 million, with the office of the Director-General getting N$4.3 million.
