The National Council Committee on Public Accounts and Economy has recommended amendments to the Import and Export Control Act to curb the loss of tax revenue to Botswana through the importation of vehicles.
Currently, vehicles older than 12 years cannot be registered in Namibia and are often exported to Botswana for registration before being re-imported into the country. This practice has resulted in Namibia only collecting tax on the vehicle’s value, rather than the full import tax.
“The Committee recommends that NamRA proposes to the Government to reconsider amending the Import and Export Control Act, 1994 (Act No. 30 of 1994) that restricts the import of second-hand vehicles into Namibia, in order to address the challenge of losing direct import tax to Botswana (e.g., Dankie Botswana),” a report by the committee reports.
The report comes after the committee’s regional oversight visit to Omaheke, //Kharas, Erongo and Ohangwena regions on the NamRA customs and excise operations.
During the visit, the committee was also informed that the //Kharas Region had collected N$140 million during the 2023/2024 financial year, which is a 34% increase from N$102 million reported in 2022/2023.
However, this positive trend is tempered by a substantial rise in deferments from N$5.3 million to N$5.8 million, indicating challenges in collecting outstanding payments.
On the other hand, the region’s trade performance presents a contrasting picture. It handled a substantial volume of 498,502 imports valued at N$56 million in 2023/2024 compared to 53,149 exports worth N$24 million in 2022/2023.
Both imports and exports declined in 2023/2024 to 487,775 units valued at N$41 million in imports and 29,530 units valued at N$17 million in exports respectively.
Similarly, officials from the Erongo region also presented the region. While import volume decreased slightly from 22,390 units in 2022/2023 to 21,903 units in 2023/2024, the value of imports soared from N$69.7 billion to N$91.8 billion, representing a 31.70% increase.
Exports also performed strongly, with an 11.29% increase in volume from 14,939 to 16,626 units and a 19.57% increase in value from N$86 billion to N$103 billion. The total revenue collected for the 2024 year so far is N$2 billion.
It is further reported that in the Ohangwena Region import volume declined from 3469 units in 2023 to 1413 in 2024. The value of imports has also declined from N$1.2 billion in 2023 to N$435 million for this quarter.
Exports from the region exhibited even more dramatic growth. The volume jumped from 20131 units in 2023 to 5902 units for this quarter while the value of exports went from N$817 million in 2023 to N$375 million. The total revenue collected for the region for the year 2024 is N$5 million.
