25 Nov 2015

Government continues to nurture a business friendly climate in order to attract foreign investment and simplify operations for domestic enterprises.

Vice President, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi said this when delivering a keynote address at the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Business Botswana best corporate reports and accounts award ceremony in Gaborone on Tuesday (November 25).

Mr Masisi said the government was working on making changes at the regulatory level in order to improve the ease of doing business. 

“The Minister of Trade and Industry recently launched the roadmap for reforming the business environment in order to make it easy to start and operate businesses.

In pursuit of this roadmap we are making radical changes to procedures for company registration, trade licensing, dealing with construction permits, trading across borders and property registration,” Mr Masisi said.

Furthermore, he said the government was working on cutting bureaucratic procedures to ensure that commercial enterprises become more focused on pursuing prospects to expand their operations.

“We have passed the Special Economic Zones Act so that business spends more energy on exploring opportunities instead of negotiating red tape.  It is my belief that assisting you to overcome red tape allows you to grow your business, expand and employ more Batswana,” he said. 

Vice President Masisi said the trend of commodity prices sliding downwards owing to China’s economic slowdown has put pressure on developing and emerging markets to attract and retain global investors, who he said have become jittery and “seek the shelter of low return but stable developed markets.”

“One key element of investment attraction is to demonstrate to the investment community that our firms adhere to international financial reporting standards and statutory disclosure requirements,” Mr Masisi said. 

He lauded PwC and Business Botswana for their awards ceremony, saying they go a long way towards promoting good corporate governance.  

Further praise was reserved for companies who competed, with the Vice President stating that such firms were sending a message of transparency in allowing their reports to be reviewed.

The Vice President’s sentiments were buttressed by the country senior partner at PwC, Mr Butler Phirie, who extolled the business community for continuously partaking in the awards, adding that well written reports were a vital element of corporate governance.

Mr Priyalal De Silva of PwC revealed that the best corporate reports and accounts awards have existed over a 25 year period stretching back to 1990, with a group of expert judges annually judging annual reports presented by different business entities.

The overall winner for 2015 was Sefalana Holdings, which also won the commerce and industry award.  TWBA\Medcom won the best local design award for designing the Sefalana presentation.

Other winners included Botswana Medical Aid Society (BOMAid) for the ‘not for profit’ sector, MVA in the parastatal segment and Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited (BIHL) who won the financial services sector award. Ends