Military spending in Namibia: A basic primer

ANDRÉ DU PISANI WRITES:

Since independence 28 years ago, military spending has grown, despite some declines of between 3 to 7 percent in particular financial years.

In the 2018/19 Budget, expenditure on the Namibian Defence Force (NDF), is projected to total N$5,959 bn. In the 2017/18 financial year expenditure was budgeted at N$6,403 bn.

These numbers make military spending the fourth highest after Education, Arts and Culture, Finance, and Health and Social Services. Government spends more on Defence than on Transport, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, Higher Education, Training and Innovation and Urban and Rural Development.

Total expenditure on the Security System, including on the Ministry of Safety & Security in the 2018/19 Financial Year could reach N$11.12 billion, out of a total expenditure of N$64,271 bn. By any measure, these are significant numbers.



DECONSTRUCTING MILITARY SPENDING

The high level of military spending has a complex context to it.

This context has various dimensions. These are, in no order of priority:

• The social impact of military expenditures – a substantial portion of the social militarization level in the country is devoted to internal control of the resident population, in the event of conflict fractures. There is also a pattern of the military as economic rent-seekers, although this is less evident.

• The military as national development factor – using the military for infrastructure construction, disaster relief, joint crime operations with the Namibian Police, Research and Development (R&D) and industrial development. Namibia has developed an arms industry, with meaningful, if undisclosed export sales and employment.

• The regional geo-political context with its strategic and economic risks, the country's military diplomacy and its relationship to foreign policy, and how these factor into procurement, training, policy and threat analysis.

• The legacies of the liberation struggle - the military and Namibian Police are key constituent elements of the politics of national reconciliation and of the connected processes of state- and nation-building.

• Regional (SADC) and continental (AU) peace-keeping and peace support operations and the country's contribution to the SADC Standby Force.

• The changing roles of militaries in the 21st Century and the training implications that flow from these – with emphasis on international peace-building, post-conflict reconstruction and new understandings of security, inclusive of economic and environmental security.



RETHINKING MILITARY STRATEGY AND POLICY

The country has a Defence Policy that was launched in 2011 and the NDF is guided by a strategic plan and operational procedures. It is not clear to what extent and through what process, the NDF regularly rethink and amplify its strategic and policy mix.

What I believe is missing is a grounded understanding of the process of managing military (defence) expenditure as an example of sound public sector management. There is now wide-spread recognition that while sound policies and strategy are important, these are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for managing military expenditure.

Sound public management of such expenditures should rest upon the following:

• The availability of information required by policy makers;

• Decisions that are made by the appropriate actors in a transparent manner;

• A comprehensive and disciplined approach to public expenditure management;

• The adoption of a medium-term perspective (3-5 years) for decision-making;

• Accountability on the part of policy makers and implementers, and

• The capacity and willingness to reprioritize and reallocate resources in order to achieve strategic objectives.



THE PROCESS OF MANAGING MILITARY EXPENDITURE

It is futile and quite impossible to effectively manage military expenditure without the presence of four crucial, inter-related components to managing such expenditure. These are:

• Identify the needs and key strategic objectives of the security system as a whole;

• Determining what is affordable;

• Allocating scare resources according to clear national priorities for which consensus has been built, both within the defence sector and between defence and other sectors such as public safety and security and intelligence, and

• Ensuring the efficient and effective use of resources, subject to parliamentary oversight, and in the event of new procurement to respond to changing circumstances, parliamentary agreement needs to be secured.

My own research into security systems and military expenditure in a number of African countries has shown that most of the time, these four components are absent or partially present at best. I have reason to believe that it is also the case in our country. Finally, the above remarks have wider resonance than military expenditure.

(André du Pisani is Emeritus Professor at the University of Namibia (Unam) and founder and chairperson of the PAX-Africana Institute for Comprehensive Security. He has been researching and publishing on security-related matters for the past four decades. The views expressed are entirely his own.)