02 Feb 2015

Government will continue to create a conducive environment for productive economic opportunities to promote inclusive growth, says Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo.

Delivering the 2015/16 budget speech in Parliament on Monday (February 2), Minister Matambo said at the same time, government would ensure that economic growth benefits were equitably shared among various sections of society.

Mr Matambo noted that the country continued to face development challenges of unemployment and poverty despite positive economic growth registered in the past years.

He added that while focus would be on productive employment, government would continue to provide social welfare programmes to the poor and most vulnerable groups in society to eradicate abject poverty.

Mr Matambo explained that inclusive growth approach was premised on gainful employment of factors of production, especially labour. He further noted that the current unemployment rate of 19.8 per cent represented underutilisation of one of the country’s resource in human capital.

“This is a challenge for the country especially that it affects the youth.  It is for this reason that government will continue to implement various programmes, projects and strategies geared towards assisting the youth and women to improve their livelihood,” he said.

He indicated that this year’s P12.93 billion which would mainly be spent on infrastructure projects such as construction of new schools, new power transmission lines and water pipelines was expected to go a long way in creating new employment opportunities.

In addition, he said complementary labour laws such as the Employment Act, Trade Disputes Act, Workers Compensation Act and Trade Unions and Employers Organisations Act would be reviewed to facilitate harmonious industrial relations and also make labour relations environment conducive for investment.

On poverty eradication, Minister Matambo said government would continue to put in place measures to improve the efficacy of social welfare programmes to address one dimension of inclusive growth, which is, protection of the disadvantaged and marginalised groups of society.

Such measures, he said, would ensure food security, availability of social safety nets to reduce poverty and promotion of opportunities for special groups such as women, the elderly and people living with disabilities.

“It is, therefore, pleasing to note that the poverty eradication efforts by government continue to yield results, as indicated by the decline in the population living in poverty from 30.6 per cent in 2002/2003 to 19.3 per cent in 2009/2010,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said government was in the process of formulating a Botswana Poverty Eradication Strategy expected to be finalised by the end of September this year.

“The strategy will serve to guide all efforts of government towards poverty eradication across sectors to ensure consistency of action and results as well as fostering inclusive growth in our economic development agenda,” he said. ENDS