01 Mar 2018

Government continues to introduce reforms and amendments in the Immigration Act to keep up with the increasing global competition to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Speaking in Parliament on February 28, Minister for Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu said various immigration laws had been amended while some were in the process of being amended with the aim of attracting and keeping investors of value.

In 2014, he said, government amended visa regulations to facilitate ease of doing business in Botswana, wherein 10 categories were introduced under which a person could be granted a visa.

These, he said, included diplomatic, official, employment, business, investment, tourism, visitors, study, emergencies and transit visas as opposed to the previous three categories which included ordinary, continuous and transit visa.

In addition, Minister Batshu said in terms of the regulations, an investor of value could now be granted a visa up to five years.

Further, he noted that, in March 2017 Cabinet approved a holistic review of the Immigration Act to modernise the Work and Residence Permits and visa regimes.

The review, he said, shall also take into consideration the ministries’ portfolio responsibilities re-organisation of October 2016.

“The review is ongoing and the final product will be brought to this House for consideration,” he said.

In April 2017, he stated, Parliament approved amendment of Section 28 of the Immigration Act in order to allow the minister to confer the status of Permanent Residence on non-citizen who had resided lawfully in Botswana for a period of less than five years.

This, he said, could be enjoyed when the minister was satisfied that the non-citizen had established a significant business in Botswana; nor intended to establish a significant business in Botswana or intended to make a significant investment in an existing Business in Botswana.

Moreover, Minister Batshu informed legislators that section 11 of the Immigration Act had also been amended to allow for the establishment of immigrants sector-specific selection boards. Thus, he said, to operationalise the amendment his ministry considered identified priority areas.

They include Business and Financial Services, Agriculture and Agro Processing, Information and Communications, Technology, Mining and Minerals beneficiation, Energy and Construction, Tourism, Health, Education and a Miscellaneous category which deals with applications that do not fall in the aforementioned categories such as farm workers, drivers ,among others.

Minister Batshu also informed the House that members appointed to these boards were professionals in various sectors who were in a position to provide high quality expertise in assessment of the resident permit applications.

Explaining further on the boards, Mr Batshu said the four sector specific boards were currently based in Gaborone for the reason that most businesses operated within the greater Gaborone.

“All boards including Regional Immigrants Selection Boards are continuously being reviewed with a view to replicating the Sector-Specific Selection Boards in other regions,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Batshu noted that the ministry continued to facilitate business persons and traders through Botswana’s 34 ports of entry or exit through effective border management system to ensure free and safe passage.

The minister was responding to a question posed by Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi who wanted to know if the country’s immigrations laws were conducive for doing business.ENDS