NAMIBIANS have barely benefited yet from the N$800 million tax breaks promised by Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila in her Budget speech earlier this year, because her Ministry failed to table draft legislation for most of the relief in the National Assembly.

When she tabled her 'Weathering the Storm' Budget in March, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila announced the huge tax concession package as part of the Swapo Government's "pro-poor, pro-growth" measures to see Namibians through the recession.

Denying that the 2009-10 Budget was an election budget, the Minister said: "As a people-centred party, our actions are always aimed at improving the lives of our people and, therefore, our budget interventions are aimed at the bread-and-butter issues."

Included in her package were income tax relief, scrapping value added tax (VAT) on milk and sugar, higher tax-free amounts for retrenchment pay-outs, lower company tax and a range of other tax cuts.

Of these, only the personal income tax relief, valued by economists at around N$60 million, has been implemented.

Meanwhile, Parliament has gone into recess two months ahead of schedule to allow MPs to campaign for the election, which means that consumers and companies will have to wait until next year for the Minister's promises to realise.

The earliest the necessary amendments could be tabled is on February 9, when Parliament will resume. That will be nearly a year since Kuugongelwa-Amadhila threw Namibians her tax lifelines.

Until then, Namibians will have to continue paying 15 per cent VAT on milk and sugar, like they have been doing for the past seven months.

The Minister promised that she would increase the tax-free amount on retrenchment packages from N$100 000 to N$300 000.

"This will especially offer relief to people who will become redundant as a consequence of retrenchments," she said at the time.

As this promise has also not materialised in draft legislation in Parliament yet, Namibians retrenched since March have missed out on the extra tax-free N$200 000.

Those buying property have similarly been short-changed, as Kuugongelwa-Amadhila's announced transfer duty relief has not been promulgated either.

Neither has the increased full lump sum tax-free pension payout.

The Minister promised that no tax would be deducted on full benefits less than N$50 000 from March.

As legislation was not amended, only full benefit pension payouts of N$20 000 are currently tax free.

The private sector was also supposed to benefit from Kuugongelwa-Amadhila's tax breaks. Corporate tax for non-mining companies would be dropped from 35 per cent to 34 per cent, she announced.

In their budget analysis earlier this year, IJG Securities estimated that this would have meant a welcome injection of between N$260 million and N$300 million into the business sector during the financial crisis. The Minister's undertaking, once again, has not found its way to Parliament as draft legislation yet.

Although Kuugongelwa-Amadhila's personal tax breaks were gazetted last month and backdated to March, analysts believe they don't really benefit the poor.

The Minister raised the threshold for those not paying tax from N$36 000 a year to N$40 000 a year. Those earning less than N$36 000 a year, however, don't benefit at all as they didn't pay tax to start with.