Moratorium announced on burials amid cash crunch

The Namibian government has announced a temporary ban on state funerals, amid criticism about the increasing costs of this burial.

The government said President Nyium Nandi-Ninda was only the ability to exempt funerals from the endowment.

The Minister of Information and Communications, Emma Theophilus, announced the announcement after the cabinet meeting earlier this week.

She said that the endowment does not last April 2026, while a review committee is looking into “standards and operations related to the granting of official funerals.”

Mrs. Theophilus BBC told a committee that consists of “no more than seven members” that will be established to lead the review.

The government did not mention whether the decision was linked to the increasing criticism of the increasing costs of the numerous government funerals, as reported by local media.

BBC asked the presidency to comment.

The Windhoek Observer, a privately owned publication, said the endowment calls to the end of the endowment to 2021 when the increasing cost of the official burial of the audit was exposed, especially at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It quoted Prime Minister Ilya Nagurari, who revealed earlier this year that the official funerals cost the government 38.4 million dollars (2.2 million dollars; 1.6 million pounds) in the fiscal year 2024/2025.

In comparison, 2.1 million Namibi dollars were spent at 23 funerals during the fiscal year 2022/2023, according to the news website.

The observer said that the state had spent 30 million Namibia just to transfer the body of the founding President Sam Nogoma across the country before the funeral of the state in February this year.

Nogoma, who died at the age of 95, led the long battle for independence from South Africa after it helped find the liberation movement in Namibia, the Southwest African People (SWAPO), in the 1960s.

After independence, Nogoma became president in 1990 and led the country until 2005.