President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi delivered his maiden SONA address Monday acknowledging Botswana’s continued dependence on rough diamonds with exports in 2017 valued at P60.15billion compared to P80.34billion in the previous year owing to the weakened global diamond for precious stones.
It was revealed that the current developmental trajectory was unsustainable and Masisi talked up need for a transformative agenda incorporated into the National Development Plan 11 2017 – 2023, to kick-start a recovery process expected to catapult Botswana’s landlocked economy to another level.
With inflation hovering at 3.3% and unemployment adversely affecting the youth who constitute about 60% of the country’s population Masisi promised to develop an overarching National Employment Policy(NEP) for Botswana with implementable solutions to address the unemployment problem.
“To develop the NEP, Government obtained financial and technical support from the World Bank. The Draft National Employment Policy for Botswana is expected to be delivered by March 2019,” said President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, to First Meeting of Fifth session of the Eleventh Parliament.
He said, “It has been observed that currently the volume of credit to the private sector especially the micro, small and medium enterprises in Botswana is relatively low compared to other countries. This is in view of the fact that access to credit is crucial for economic growth and private sector development.”
Officials say a major obstacle to flow of credit is that currently financial institutions only take immovable property as collateral for credit. Government is therefore developing a collateral registry, so households and businesses can register their movable assets as collateral to get credit from lenders.
Such movable assets to be included in a Collateral Registry is expected to be incorporated in a Bill to be submitted to Parliament in the July 2019 sitting include vehicles, industrial and agricultural equipment, machinery, inventory and raw materials, accounts receivables, intellectual property rights and agricultural products such as crops and livestock.
“The other initiative is the Supplier Development Programme(SDP), whose objective is to strengthen citizen owned enterprise competitiveness. The aim of the programme is to connect small-scale producers/suppliers to local markets as well as abroad. The programme is anticipated to start in 2019 and will target 5 priority sectors of mining, agro processing, leather, infrastructure projects and textile as well as to develop their associated value chains,” said Masisi.
He said, “We remain committed to using Government purchasing power to boost local productive capacity and help build competitiveness for our industries in the regional and global markets.”
Officials says in 2018/19, Botswana Exporter Development Programme(BEDP) will enroll 20 companies to assist them to develop their export marketing plans to enhance their export readiness and competitiveness. The programme will build capacity for companies to supply both local and international retail chain stores.
Botswana is also negotiating an Economic Partnership Agreement(EPA) with the United Kingdom(UK), necessitated by the impending departure of the UK from the European Union(EU).
A further deal is sought with Norway to increase current quota of 500 tonnes of beef and 500 tonnes of lamb enjoyed with Namibia through a bilateral agricultural agreement, to producer for local small stock farmers. Government is also pursuing plans to privatize Botswana Meat Commission(BMC) to improve efficiencies and use a state of the art solar powered lighting system developed by the Botswana Institute for Technology, Research and Innovation(BITRI) for use in parks, gardens, farms and clinics.
Masisi also announced plans to spend P58million to be spent on the acquisition of local content during the current financial year on the recently Youth Channel NOW launched in March, 2018.
“I am generally very disappointed. My expectations were quite high. All I see is a speech prepared by a desperate man,” said Mohammed Khan, Botswana National Front(BNF) Legislator and Molepolole North Member of Parliament(MP).
He said, “Most of his set targets for policy reforms and developments to create jobs are for the 2019 elections. For example, the Lobatse Leather Park has been ongoing for so long. There is also nothing new on the Youth Development Fund(YDF). He is not committing to specific targets.”
Another opposition legislator Wynter Mmolotsi, revealed that he expected Masisi to say more about his road map to explain how he plans to tackle to country’s challenges.
“I think there is nothing different. I was expecting him to announce major steps to create jobs not to tell us about things he is already doing,” remarked Wynter Mmolotsi, Member of Parliament(MP) and Deputy Leader for the Alliance for Progressives(AP).
He said, “Talking of issues like Teacher accommodation is stale news. There is a need to address issues like the collapse of the health system with current shortages in medical supplies and doctors.”
Botswana’s foreign reserves as at December 2017 stood at P73.7billion a decline of 4% from P76.8billion during the same period in 2016.
