03 Feb 2015

The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning has adopted the Making Access to Financial Services Possible to Financial Inclusion, Minister Kenneth Matambo has said. 

Delivering the 2015 budget Speech on February 2, Mr Matambo said the move was because achieving inclusive growth as a policy objective depended on, among others, the extent to which the financial system provided basic financial services to people.

In that regard, the minister noted that the financial sector had intensified its efforts to promote financial inclusion, broadly defined as delivery of financial services at affordable costs to disadvantaged and low-income segments of the society.

He also noted that mobile financial service was one of the initiatives being used to promote financial inclusion. “It includes mobile money transfer and mobile banking such as e-wallet and others which are easily accessible and convenient medium for the delivery of financial services,” he said.

The minister further indicated that a Making Access to Financial Services Possible diagnostic analysis will be carried out in Botswana with the view to developing a comprehensive financial inclusion road map to lead a more accessible, inclusive and robust financial system.

He further indicated that inclusive growth could not be achieved without empowering citizens to take an active role in economic activities.

As a result, he said government continued to make concerted efforts to empower citizens in order to benefit from economic growth.

“To this end, the amended Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy makes it mandatory for sub-contracting of government funded projects to 100 per cent citizen owned companies. 

“It further stipulates that 30 per cent of each ministry’s projects budget should be reserved for 100 per cent citizen owned companies to promote citizen empowerment,” he explained.

He added that to further advance citizen empowerment, implementation of Local Procurement Scheme had been progressing at different levels across the country and all district administrative tender committees had been trained on it.

Again, he said effective implementation of the scheme should translate into more empowerment of citizens in rural areas, especially through businesses owned by women, youth and People Living with Disabilities.

Minister Matambo noted that government was committed to creating a favourable environment for the development of the small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), s part of citizen empowerment in the country.

However, he said success of the SMMEs would depend on various factors such as their ability to deliver quality products to clients, delivery of goods and services on time as well as reasonable pricing of such goods and services.

“This, in turn, requires that SMMEs also invest in innovation and skills development to ensure their long term sustainability,” he said.

Minister Matambo also indicated that despite being a long term process and some achievements, economic diversification still remained a challenge.

To address such, he said government continued to embark on several strategies that, of late, included cluster and value chain development, financial support as well as fostering an environment that allowed for complementarity between macro and micro economic policies and deregulation of domestic markets to promote competition.

“The cluster and value chain approach to development has yielded positive results in countries. The concept of clusters refers to a group of inter-connected firms, suppliers and related industries, while a value chain is a sequence of activities that firms operating in specific industry perform in order to deliver valuable product or service.”

In that regard, he said government had adopted the cluster development approach as a practical strategy to achieve economic growth and diversification with four identified clusters of diamond, tourism, cattle and mining comprising of coal, copper and other minerals excluding diamonds. ENDS