14 Jun 2017

Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Kitso Mokaila says plans are still underway to privatise Air Botswana.

Speaking at a press briefing on June 13, Mr Mokaila said the ministry had shortlisted two companies out of the 17 that had shown interest in buying the national flag carrier.

He stated that it was true that there was a directive that informed them to partner with Wilderness Safaris after following the right procedures that would result in the  privatisation of Air Botswana.

He said the ministry was working on the modalities of shareholding of Air Botswana as government could no longer assist with funding.

“We had submitted only two names being Wilderness Safaris and South Africa’s Comair and eventually preferred Wilderness Safari as they had presented a proposal we liked. But they ended up pulling back during the negotiation processes due to controversies surrounding the issue peddled by some media houses,” said the minister.

Mr Mokaila explained that they wanted Air Botswana to stand on its own and make profit rather than making losses and depending on government.

He also stated that there were certain procedures that had to be followed in order for Air Botswana to be privatised, adding that with or without Wilderness Safari, Air Botswana would still be privatised.

He explained further that as a ministry, they had to first look for potential partners, then hand over the privatisation process to BEEPA.

On other issues, Minister Mokaila explained that government had set aside P202 million to be used in renovating roads as well as another P572 milion to be allocated to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to fix damages to roads by Cyclone Dineo-powered rains.

He further stated that the re-sealing of roads would be determined by economic value of a particular road, adding that bad roads would get first priority in the renovation process.

On the recent ‘Wannacry virus threats’, Mr Mokaila explained that nothing had been affected during the threats, saying the only problem they faced was that of Internet servers as they were down which interrupted services in some sectors.

He further mentioned that they were working on perfecting and upgrading their Microsoft server with the hope that it would also put an end occurances of systems being down in government offices.  

Further, Mr Mokaila revealed that BOCRA would reduce data charges as they had released a statement to the effect.

He further stated that more usage of Internet would reduce congestion on the roads as people would now use technology to pay for bills. ENDS