NCIS underspent over N.$ 500 million in eight years

WINDHOEK, 04 DEC – The Namibia Central Intelligence Service (NCIS) underspent around N.dollars 590 million allocated to it between the 2006 and 2014 financial years (FY).
This information was revealed in an audit report submitted to the National Assembly recently by Finance Deputy Minister Natangwe Ithete.

In the dossier, Auditor General (AG) Junias Kandjeke found that for the 2006/07 FY, the spy body underspent its budget by over N$9 million.
During the following two financial years, 2007/08 and 2008/09, it underspent its budget by N$12 million and N$26 million respectively.
For the next three financial years (2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12), NCIS failed to utilise a combined N$277.8 million.

The following financial year, they underspent by N$27 million.
The highest amount underspent in the eight financial years was recorded in the 2013/14 FY, when the NCIS returned N$237 million to treasury.

This, Kandjeke stressed, is in contravention of Treasury Instruction DC 0202 which stipulates that when drawing up draft estimates, accounting officers and their financial advisors ought to guard against requesting more funds than can be reasonably be spent.

“It is recommended that the director should put measures in place to avoid underspending of the budget and comply with the Treasury Instruction DC 0202,” Kandjeke recommended to the agency in the report.
Further, the auditors also found that the NCIS had also spent around N$5.6 million without Treasury authorising such expenditure which is in contravention of Section 6(a) (iii) of the State Finance of 1991.

“It is recommended that the director should implement budgetary control measures to prevent unauthorised expenditure in future,” the AG said.

Another key finding by the auditors into the books of the intelligence entity was during the 2012/13 financial year, when NCIS’ total budget from its ledger was N$499 million, while its authorised budget as reported by its director was N$344.2 million.
This results into an unexplained difference of N4154.4 million.

During the same financial year, the director also reported that the service suspended N$185.2 million which was never recorded on the standard ledger, Kandjeke discovered. – NAMPA