11 Sep 2016

The Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry might consider doing away with licencing of businesses except for those which have impact on environmental, human health and safety. This transpired during the licencing chairpersons’ meeting in Gaborone on Thursday (September 8), where Minister Vincent Seretse said doing away with licensing will improve the ease of doing business as licenses are sometimes seen as an impediment to trade.

In this regard, he said government has developed the Doing Business Roadmap for Botswana, whose recommendations were approved in December 2014, as well as development of the draft bill to this effect.

He also noted that in order to achieve this, there was need for an intensive review of the Trade Act, 2003 and its subsidiary legislation, a process which he said had already commenced.

The minister however emphasised that doing away with licencing would not open up trade in reserved business activities to non-citizen-owned businesses as the reservation would remain in force.

On a related matter, Mr Seretse said as a ministry they had been engaging with non-citizen retail business owners who traded in the reserved business space, informing them that government had stopped issuing exemptions to acquire new licences in the reserved business space unless there was proof of efforts to involve citizens.

“The ministry is not directing companies to dispose of their shares, but engages the companies to ensure that there is citizen empowerment especially that the activities are reserved. I am pleased to report that the engagement has gone well so far, with most of the retailers willing to consider the request,” he said.

Furthermore the minister said the Liquor Act, 2003 was also being reviewed after some deficiencies which made implementations difficult. Minister Seretse said the review will provide for definition of terms such as “liquor depot, major road and highway” to allow for uniform interpretation.  ENDS