24 Oct 2017

The newly established Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA), act prohibits anyone to provide a service under a regulated sector without the authority’s licence to do so.

That was said by the authority's chief executive officer, Ms Rose Seretse when addressing the first BERA media pitso on October 23. 

The act, Ms Seretse said, also hindered any person from constructing any significant infrastructure “unless he or she is authorised to do so by the authority.”

The pitso was meant to share the regulatory authority's mandate with members of the media to help create awareness about its purpose. 

Dissemination of the information to the public, she said, would help ensure there was strict adherence to the BERA act.

The licences, she said will be issued at a fee which includes application fees and annual licence fees, among others.

However, she said fees should be reasonable, justifiable and appropriate for the type of activity.

“The annual licence fees in aggregate will not exceed one and half per cent of the combined gross turnover of the licence or regulated entity,” she said.

She said the authority was also responsible for ensuring sustainable and secure supplies in all the regulated sectors, setting and maintaining service standards, balancing the interests of both consumers, customers and licensees of the regulated entities and overseeing project development in the regulated sector to ensure environmental compliance. 

Other responsibilities, she said, included regulating coal supply agreements between collieries, coal supplies and price regulated generators, licensing activities in the regulated sectors, regulating network access for independent power producers, privately financed projects in the regulated sector and monitoring and inspecting licences and enforcing licence obligations.   

Currently, she said the regulatory authority, which started its operation on September 1 this year, had a staff compliment of less than 10, adding “we are currently going on full swing to recruit more staff.”

When fully capacitated, she said the authority would have a staff compliment of between 60 and 70, “but not more than 70 because we believe 70 staff members will be sufficient to operate effectively.”

The regulatory authority, Ms Seretse said would move to Lobatse between December 2017 and January 2018, because that was where it would be located.

However, she said there were also plans to open other offices in Francistown, Tsabong and Maun in the future. 

Presenting on the petroleum sector in terms of inspections, supervision and environmental compliance, BERA petroleum executive director, Mr Kenneth Kerekang, said the authority was currently developing standards and regulatory guidelines on how to access its services.

Presenting on the energy sector on behalf of BERA’s executive director responsible for the electricity sector, chief operations officer, Mr Duncan Morotsi stressed that BERA only authorised the construction of infrastructure, adding that the application should adhere to all aspects and should go through all channels required for the issuance of a licence to operate the business. 

To be authorised to construct any significant infrastructure, Mr Morotsi said one needed to ensure that the land where operations would take place had all the necessary legal documents required by the authority to issue the licence as well as conformation of ownership of the land. 

In his vote of thanks, BERA board chairperson, Mr Bernad Ndove, who was appointed as board chairperson on May 1 this year, also urged members of the media to ensure that the nation was aware of BERA’s mandate, “so that they can start complying if they were not doing that.”

“We do not want to ambush or drive businesses to liquidate because our purpose is to provide economic regulation of the energy sector by supervising and controlling all players in the sector to ensure there is fair competition for companies to operate and provide secure and reliable services to the public,” he said.  

He added that all issues pertaining to competition would be referred to the Competition Authority, as per Section 62 of the BERA Act. ENDS