Opposition political parties have threatened to boycott budget discussions in parliament until they are provided with the full documents that will allow them to engage with the appropriation bill in depth. The finance and social grants management minister, Ericah Shafudah, tabled the N$106.3 billion national budget in the National Assembly on Thursday last week. The opposition parties’ threat followed the postponement of this week’s budget debate to 8 April. This was announced by the National Assembly in a statement on Tuesday, although reasons were not given. Affirmative Repositioning leader Job Amupanda told The Namibian they will not debate the budget without documents. Amupanda on his social platform on Tuesday said the documents the opposition requested last week had not been provided, precluding any discussion or debates on the budget. Body of Christ Party president Festus Thomas agreed, saying his party wants to ensure the budget is passed following due dilligence. “The people voted for us to represent them in parliament. We do not want to have harsh discussions without knowing what is actually in the documents. We need to see who are the beneficiaries, how the budget was formulated and which ministry got how much and why,” said Thomas in an interview with The Namibian yesterday. Thomas emphasised the importance of leaders being sufficiently informed, allowing them to make decisions that speak to the interests of all Namibians. He also urged the finance ministry to ensure that documents are made available by next week Tuesday. The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) say they are disappointed by the decision to postpone parliamentary sittings. Party spokesperson Immanuel Nashinge describes the decision as unilateral. “The IPC expresses deep concern over the unilateral decision by the speaker of the National Assembly, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, to postpone today’s parliamentary sitting – which was set to deliberate on the critical appropriation bill – without citing any valid standing rule or consulting the chief whips of other opposition political parties,” he said on Tuesday. Nashinge argues that parliament must not be held hostage by executive incompetence or partisan manoeuvering. The IPC, he says, has sought an immediate explanation from the speaker on the rule invoked for the postponement, as well as a commitment that future sittings will not be arbitrarily delayed without cross-party consultation as provided for in the standing rules. During an interview with Desert FM yesterday, National Democratic Party (NDP) leader Martin Lukato said if parliament had agreed to his proposal to give parliamentarians two weeks to study the budget, the National Assembly would not have needed to make such an abrupt decision. He said the two weeks were going to be adequate for documents to be provided and studied. “But now [the parliamentary sitting] is postponed to next week. I commend the speaker for doing so because it is the right thing,” Lukato said. Lukato clarified that during the induction workshop for members of parliament, the speaker announced that parliament will be postponed to allow ample time to scrutinise the budget documents. “I thought all political parties represented on the whips forum in the National Assembly were consulted, and agreed on the postponement.” The post Budget debate postponed as MPs demand transparency appeared first on The Namibian.

The Republican House Of Representatives passes their proposed budget

Members of the National Assembly are continuing to scrutinise the 2025/26 appropriation bill, with some arguing that the multibillion-dollar budget fails to meet the needs of the average Namibian. In his contribution to the budget debate on Tuesday, Mathieas Mbundu of the Republican Party said his party would partially support the budget, which he claimed failed to address the bread-and-butter issues. He said the budget does not demonstrate how the government plans to benefit from natural resources or address the skills gap and create employment. “We can’t expect to confront the current crisis of unemployment without looking at the skills and knowledge gap existing in the education sector. Most graduates end up jobless or over-skilled because our existing job market can’t absorb them. So, it brings back the question of how our natural resources are benefiting the unemployed, both literate and illiterate citizens,” the opposition lawmaker queried. Elvis Lizazi of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) called for meaningful budget allocation towards strengthening community courts. Lizazi, who is IPC’s shadow minister of justice and labour relations, emphasised the need to train community court clerks and increase the N$1 000 monthly allowance they receive. “By doing so, we validate the role of customary justice while ensuring it aligns with constitutional values,” he said, while also calling for more funds for mobile legal clinics to offer legal services in rural areas. Although she commended the minister of finance and social grants management, Ericah Shafudah, for tabling the N$106.3 billion budget, Fenni Nanyeni of Swapo expressed concern over the large amount allocated to servicing sovereign debt. An allocation of N$79.8 billion is designated for operational expenditure, while N$13.7 billion is allocated for debt servicing, and N$12.8 billion is set aside for development expenditure. “That means only 12% of our budget goes to building the roads, schools, hospitals, water, electricity and rural infrastructure that our people need most,” she said. “While the rise in development budget allocations is notable and I commend the minister for that, we must not ignore the widening gap between our consumption, what we owe and what we build. For the third year running, our development vote is still lagging behind both operational expenses and debt servicing.” The post Budget discussions continue in parliament appeared first on The Namibian.

<p>In a significant policy shift, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that the Republican party may pursue cuts to Medicaid, contradicting earlier assurances from GOP leaders, including form...

MP Lizazi urges modest budget boost for rural justice access NBC Online Wed, 04/16/2025 - 12:05

While the nation was sleeping on Wednesday, members of the National Assembly were in the ‘august House’ dissecting the national budget for the new financial year. Discussions between members of parliament (MPs) young and old kicked off at 14h30 and dragged on until 05h00 yesterday morning. Some ‘honourable members’ with chronic conditions asked that the session be adjourned so they could go home to take their medicine, but this request was overruled by the majority who wanted to push on until sunrise. By the time the last ‘honourable member’ was done giving their contribution and the speaker called it a day, some MPs could not decide between heading home or grabbing the next business day by the horns. Deputy minister of education, innovation, youth, sport, arts and culture Dino Ballotti said he did not know whether to finally go to bed or brush his teeth and head straight to the office. He described the all-nighter as “a marathon session”. “5am club! What a marathon session! Do I go home and sleep or just brush my teeth and go to the office?” he asked his followers on social media. Popular Democratic Movement leader McHenry Venaani yesterday told The Namibian it was the longest session he has sat through in his 23 years in parliament. “We’ve gone up to 03h00, but 05h00 is a new thing,” he said. Venaani said some MPs take medication for chronic diseases and wanted to adjourn at 03h00 to reconvene at 10h30, but the majority members opted to carry on and finish the debate. For the past week, National Assembly sessions ran late while MPs debated various ministries’ budget allocations. The all-nighter was due to the appropriation bill requiring discussion as the National Assembly is set for a recess next week. New acting National Assembly secretary Esther Kaapanda confirmed this to The Namibian yesterday. She said today’s session would convene at 09h00 and run until 14h30. “The extended hours are to ensure we finalise the appropriation bill before the House goes into recess next week. It is not unusual for National Assembly sessions to go on until late – in this case till the morning hours,’ Kaapanda said. ‘NO OVERTIME’ Kaapanda said MPs do not get paid overtime as attending these sessions is part of their duties. Among the heated debates was the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development’s budget allocation of N$2.7 billion for the 2025/26 financial year. The ministry came under fire for failing to render services to residents and for building houses that are left unoccupied. Swapo MP Marius Sheya has called for residents’ historical debts to be written off and for prepaid water metres to be installed for residents who are unable to afford conventional water meters. Affirmative Repositioning member of parliament George Kambala said urbanisation does not imply development, hence he called for the implementation of a regional township proposal. Urban and rural development minister James Sankwasa attributed the ministry’s challenges to big debts owed to local authorities. He said the housing issue is being addressed, but it is complex and requires all stakeholders’ collaboration. National Democratic Party leader Martin Lukato, who also pulled the all-nighter, asked Sankwasa when the ministry would address the scarcity of land, particularly serviced land. The post MP marathon: National budget debate drags on until 05h00 as parliament pushes to beat recess deadline appeared first on The Namibian.

By Richard Cowan and Bo Erickson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Friday was set to start a marathon session aimed at eventually handing Republican President Donald Trump sweeping legislation to extend tax cuts and achieve budget reductions in the face of staunch Democratic opposition. Late on Thursday, the Senate narrowly voted to open debate on a budget blueprint for the fiscal year beginning on October 1. The 52-48 vote was needed to unlock a fast-track procedure for pole-vaulting the costly tax cuts over blockades that Democrats normally could erect in opposition to the legislation. Republicans have been struggling with worries about whether they can approve enough spending cuts to offset what some outside experts see as a multi-trillion-dollar price tag on their tax cuts. Senate Majority Leader John Thune succeeded in keeping nearly all of his 52 Republican colleagues in line - only Senator Rand Paul voted no - in order to begin the debate. However, it could take months for the Senate and House of Representatives to get to the point of actually voting on legislation that would enact the tax cuts, which some estimate could add around $5 trillion over 10 years to a national debt that already is more than $36.6 trillion. Trump is pushing hard for Republicans, who narrowly control both chambers of Congress, to hand him what he calls "one big beautiful bill" that also would pay for additional resources for securing the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico and to deport immigrants. Democrats were expected to offer scores of amendments, all or nearly all of which Republicans will likely rebuff, that deal with stopping cuts to Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for low-income households and the disabled, as well as ones dealing with veterans, Social Security retirement benefits and trade tariffs imposed unilaterally by Trump that have put financial markets into a tailspin. The debate in what is known as a "vote-a-rama" could stretch into Saturday. "Democrats will expose the dark corners of the Republican plan," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in his opening arguments. "We will lay the case for how Republicans will plan to destroy Medicaid as we know it." The House of Representatives’ budget outline calls for $880 billion in Medicaid cuts, which Republicans claim can be achieved without cutting benefits but by rooting out what they see as waste, fraud and abuse that they have not yet detailed. But Democrats were not the only obstacle that Thune will have to navigate. Senator Susan Collins and potentially a handful of other Republicans have expressed reservations with different aspects of the legislation. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas told reporters late on Thursday that leadership was fielding concerns about how the Senate’s parliamentarian would enforce rules for this complicated, months-long process. That has spurred Republican discussions of circumventing the parliamentarian in order to gain a more favorable cost estimate for the whole process. At stake is whether Republicans can claim to minimize the costs of their legislation. "I will just speak for myself and say that I would never vote to overturn the parliamentarian," said Senator Susan Collins. Thune told reporters that he would not have moved forward with the legislation on the Senate floor "if we didn’t think we were clearly following the law." Another concerned lawmaker was Republican Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, who said he voted to proceed after he spoke with Trump on Thursday evening on potential Medicaid benefit cuts. "The president said to me tonight that the House will not cut Medicaid benefits, the Senate will not cut Medicaid benefits, and ’I won’t sign something with Medicaid benefit cuts in it,’" Hawley recounted, saying Trump’s assurance was "completely unequivocal" and a "red line." "It’s always been the conservative position not to add debt; not to add extraordinary amounts," Paul said in an interview. "This may well be a record amount of debt. I’m not sure we’ve ever voted for $5 trillion in debt."

Sajad Lone criticizes J&K Budget 2025, calling it politically motivated and financially unviable. He questions fund allocation, revenue generation, and policy contradictions.

Brace yourself for financial surprises and bold proposals that could shake up next year’s priorities.

On the eve of their first major vote to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, key House Republicans are warning Speaker Mike Johnson that they won’t simply rubber-stamp steep cuts across the federa...