10 Oct 2016

Statistics Botswana recently launched the 2016/ 2017 Census of Enterprises and Establishments (CEE); a large scale statistical survey for collecting and compiling basic benchmark economic indicators from businesses in the formal sector.

Speaking at the launch, deputy statistician general- economic- social, Dr Burton Mguni said the scope of the 2016/ 2017 CEE was confined to all public and private sector enterprises established and located in urban and rural areas with the aim of profit making.

He said objectives of the 2016/ 2017 CEE include provision of comprehensive statistics on the industrial structure and profile of the economy.

This, he said also extended to obtaining information on the distribution of economic units with respect to geographic location as well as employment sizes of different industries.

“Statistics Botswana like any other statistical agency need to provide the government and other stakeholders with statistical information that will guide economic development,” he said.

He said amongst the statistical information needed was the up to date economic indicators that will assist in monitoring economic diversification and the performance of the economy in general and will be useful in policy formulation, decision making as well as monitoring and evaluation.

He explained that that the data collection under the CEE will be done in two phases. Phase one which started this month will run until November 2016 and it entails listing of all enterprises and establishments while Phase 2 will see the actual collection of economic data and will start in 2017.

Dr Mguni urged all business units, be in the cities, towns villages, cattle posts to participate in accordance to the Statistics.

This he said, makes it mandatory for individuals, businesses and households to furnish required information and to answer questions during data collection.

“As stated in the statistic Act, failure to provide the required by enterprises has far reaching negative effects to the quality of the economic indicators that will be produced at the end and hence inappropriate development of national programmes and misguided decision making by the business community and other stakeholders,” he said. ENDS