The Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD) underspent its budget for the 2016/17 financial year by N$310, 1 million which could have been spent on other national pressing needs, Auditor General, Junias Kandjeke has found. The information is contained in the ministry’s audit report tabled in the National Assembly by Finance Minister, Calle Schlettwein on Wednesday. “The total budget of the ministry was underspent with an amount of N$310 million. These funds could have been used for other pressing needs in the country,” Kandjeke states in the report. Kandjeke recommended that the accounting officer, the Permanent Secretary in MURD, put measures in place to avoid underspending of the budget. He also recommended that the ministry comply with the Treasury Instruction DC 0202, which stipulates that when drawing up draft estimates, accounting officers and their financial advisors ought to guard against requesting more funds than that which they can reasonably spend. The ministry was also caught on the wrong side for unauthorised expenditure amounting to N$ 3.2 million, which is in contravention of the State Finance Act of 1991. Moreover, the auditor also observed differences between appropriated amounts in the ministry’s budget book and the appropriation account. Exemplifying the matter, Kandjeke noted that under the main division; Regional, Local and Traditional Authority Coordination, the budget book shows N$1 122 917 000, while the appropriation account shows N$1 249 548 000. This translates into an unexplained difference of N$126 631 000. For Housing, Habitat and Technical Service Coordination, the budget book shows N$1 452 395 000, while the appropriation account shows an amount of N$1 334 764 000. This means there was a variance of N$117 631 000. “It is recommended that the accounting officer should explain the differences between appropriated amounts and amounts in the appropriation account,” Kandjeke said. While acknowledging that the Tender Board (now Central Procurement Board) granted the ministry an exemption to the tune of N$2,6 billion for the procurement of various items during the period in question, the audit found that several exempted amounts were also exceeded. Among those is travel and subsistence allowance, whose approved amount stood at N$9,8 million and exceeded by N$4 million. Utilities were exceeded by N$3,5 million. The approved amount was N$7,4 million. “It is recommended that the accounting officer should explain why the amounts were exceeded, why office furniture and equipment were purchased under the exception, while there was no provision for it under the exemption,” he added.