The over-expenditure was incurred mainly because of poorly co-ordinated trips inside and outside Namibia, coupled with under-utilised vehicles for which the Ministry pays the Works Ministry.

As a result, a stern warning has been issued to all regional education directors that it was illegal to overspend their budgets.

A study of the Ministry's books in November last year revealed that the subsistence and travel (S&T) budget and the transport budget were already overspent.

VISITS RESTRICTED

In a "general service circular" distributed to different directorates, acting Permanent Secretary Patty Swartz said they found that the subsistence and travel (S&T) and the transport budgets had been exhausted within eight months.

As a result the the Ministry has been forced to suspend all foreign trips unless they are funded by donors.

Workshops and training programmes have also been identified as large expenses and thus suspended "with immediate effect and for the remainder of the financial year".

Swarts further told the different departments to cut all transport expenses.

She instructed regional directors to maintain better control over the use of vehicles, and to restrict school visits by inspectors, advisory teachers and district literacy officers to less than 24 hours to save on S&T.

In the past, regional officers transported monthly salary cheques to schools but because of budgetary constraints they will have to send them to circuit offices for distribution from the end of this month.

The Government's financial year starts in April and that is when the Ministry will be allocated a new S&T budget.

According to the circular, Swarts has called on different offices to co-ordinate and combine trips to cut transport spending, and instructed all departments to return uneconomical or under-utilised vehicles to the Government Garage.

The Ministry rents cars from the Government Garage, which falls under the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication.

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