Tipeeg in slow motion

FEWER jobs have been created in the 18 months since Government launched its N$14,7 billion plan to get Namibians off the streets than were supposed to have been generated in a single year.

Figures presented to Cabinet early this month showed that N$1,1 billion was spent between April and the end of September this year, which created only 8 571 jobs under the Targeted Intervention Programme for Employment and Economic Growth (Tipeeg).When she launched Tipeeg in March 2011, Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the blueprint’s aim was to create 104 000 permanent and temporary jobs during the three fiscal years until 2013-14 – about 34 667 per year.A total of 25 394 people found jobs under Tipeeg in its first year. Added to the jobs created until September, Tipeeg resulted in 33 965 new employment opportunities since its launch.The latest economic update released by the Ministry of Finance this week shows that of the jobs created under Tipeeg’s first year, only 29% were permanent jobs.Tipeeg’s poor performance is either the result of ministries sitting on their development budgets or them failing to submit the required progress reports to the National Planning Commission (NPC) to monitor the implementation of the employment creation blueprint.Cabinet was briefed that of the N$6,6 billion earmarked for development in the Budget 2012-13, only N$1,8 billion was spent between April and September this year, resulting in an execution rate of only 28%. Compared to the same period last year, the execution rate was 31%. In total, only 71% of the Tipeeg budget was spent in 2011-12.The Namibian understands that NPC Director General Tom Alweendo informed Cabinet at its meeting on December 4 that the current execution rate is ‘not satisfactory’.Alweendo apparently furthermore called on Cabinet to put pressure on their ministries to submit their compulsory quarterly reports on how much of their development budgets have been spent.Neither Cabinet Secretary Frans Kapofi, nor Information and Technology Minister Joël Kaapanda yesterday wanted to comment on what steps Cabinet intend taking to ensure that Alweendo’s call is heeded.Alweendo also needs these reports to monitor the implementation of the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP4), launched in July and suppose to create 18 000 jobs a year over a five-year period.Alweendo reportedly lamented the ‘state of affairs for poor submissions’. At the time of the briefing, only the Office of the Prime Minister, as well as the ministries of Finance, Veterans Affairs, Justice and Education had handed in their reports.In its new economic outlook, the Ministry of Finance said ‘recent initiatives to tackle unemployment and boost job creation have fallen short of their intended goals’, citing poor execution of budgets as one of the reasons.When she tabled the budget 2012-13 in March, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said it was the duty of ministries, its agencies and offices to ‘reduce wastage and to waste neither time nor energy to implement programmes and to realise internal efficiency and value for money’.’The core message emanating from the first year of Tipeeg implementation is that more money per se does not guarantee success. We have to inculcate the culture of innovation and efficient service delivery,’ Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said at the time.

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