State media get more handouts from Govt

THE annual State subsidy for the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) will be N$15,2 million lower in the new financial year.
It will receive an allocation of N$100,8 million compared to N$116,1 million a year ago.

Introducing the budget for the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in Parliament on Friday, Minister Joel Kaapanda said the total expenditure for the Ministry would come to N$234,8 million. A whopping one million Namibia dollars will be used to ‘produce a high quality coffee table book of the new State House’. ‘This will be the most expensive book ever made in Namibia – and all with taxpayers’ money,’ an opposition MP remarked outside the Chamber on Friday.Although Kaapanda just touched on the subsidies for the various Government media and did not provide any details, the budget documents reveal that the loss-making Namibia Press Agency (Nampa) will get the same amount as last year – N$11,5 million. espite the Government newspaper New Era making a profit for the past two years, according to the Minister, it will receive a subsidy of N$3 million in the new year, down from N$4,5 million a year ago. Minster Kaapanda did not explain why New Era still required a subsidy, despite repeating on Friday that the paper had reportedly made profits.A loss-making joint project with Zimbabwe, NamZim Papers, which produces the weekly regional newspaper Southern Times, will receive N$4,3 million from the taxpayer this year, up from N$2 million a year ago. All in all, the subsidies to the State media come to about N$120 million plus another N$6 million extra to the NBC to cover the upcoming national and presidential elections and two soccer events, the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations and the Soccer World Cup in South Africa.