NAMIBIA: 'Orphan tax' early next year

A local NGO, the AIDS Law Unit, said it welcomed the government announcement on Tuesday that Namibians would have to pay a special 'orphan tax' from April next year because of the severe orphan crisis facing the country. The weekly Cabinet bulletin said Finance Minister Nangolo Mbumba had been asked to establish an Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) fund and to introduce a levy from the 2003-04 financial year to sustain the fund. "While we may support the principle behind the announcement, government still needs to make a more detailed proposal available to the public for us to see exactly how AIDS orphans can benefit from a fund of this magnitude", AIDS Law Unit project lawyer, Delme Cupido told UN news agency PlusNews. A recent joint study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Health had projected that the number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Namibia will soar to more than 120,000 by the beginning of 2009. Referring to reported misappropriation of similar funds in other African countries, Cupido said: "When government proposes a tax plan with claims of benefiting AIDS orphans it is always safer to make the public aware of how much is being spent and on what." It is not clear how much each working Namibian will have to contribute to the fund that will be merged with existing funds administered by the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture.