14 Feb 2016

President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama has said Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) was a response to the current unfavourable economic climate following the world economic recession of 2008/09 which had resulted in job losses, not only in the country but in the world at large.

Officially launching the ESP in Machaneng on Saturday February 13, President Khama said the ESP was meant to boost economic growth through increased government spending in identified sectors, diversify the economy and accelerate employment creation.

He said one of the major challenges in the economy was the fall of the commodity prices in the mining sector including diamonds. He however said there was a need to diversify the economy even more so as to create sustainable jobs and to be able to cushion the economy against the international shocks of the mineral process.

President Khama said that it was in response to the above that ESP was targeting the construction, the manufacturing, tourism and the Agricultural sectors. He further said that the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) and the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in particular would boost the local Manufacturing Sector. “ESP also targets infrastructure development through construction and maintenance of Government facilities and the re-skilling of youth,” he said.

President Khama said the implementation of the initiative would be enabled by the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as reforms in the procurement process to bring efficiency. “These efforts will be further complemented by the implementation of the Doing Business Roadmap and Action Plan recently launched by the Ministry of Trade and Industry,” he said.

He said the Government Implementation Coordination Office (GICO) was being strengthened to oversee the implementation of all government projects, monitor and to keep records of their progress while the National Strategy Office would focus on the successful delivery, strategic oversight and support to ensure that the goals of the ESP were achieved.

He said the projects and initiatives under the targeted sectors which would be implemented by the relevant ministries were the agriculture sector, tourism sector, EDD- boosting manufacturing, SEZs, infrastructure development, lands and housing, health care sector, transport and communication sector, education and skills development, re- skilling the youth, local government and rural development.

He said following the announcement of the ESP, some good work had been done by the ministries to prepare the ground for the programme to be delivered in the best way and achieve its intended outcome. He said the major pre-occupation had been to address the impediments that had been facing project implementation in the country so that the country would not fall into the same trap of failure to implement an otherwise well-thought out and well-intended programme.

President Khama said these had been identified as availability of resources such as water and electricity, the needed capacity both within government and the private sector, the time taken to perform Environmental Impact Assessment  for projects, the long procurement process, and facilitation of doing business through processing of work and residence permits and visas for external expertise.

In addition to addressing the above impediments, he said, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime and the Financial Intelligent Agency  had come up with a toolbox to mitigate opportunities for corruption and ensure that the fast tracking process was not in any way construed or used to bypass the necessary checks and balances as well as oversight processes.

He said particular attention had been given to the geographical spread of the projects so that all sectors and regions of the country were impacted by the stimulus programme and the expected impact is improved lives through health and education, growing diversified economy and increased levels of employment. Ends