20 Aug 2018

Time is opportune for Botswana and the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) to promote the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector for the purpose of employment creation, says Mr Keletsositse Olebile.

Speaking at the inaugural BPO Thought Leadership Forum recently, Mr Olebile, who is BITC chief executive officer, said given Botswana’s youth unemployment rate of 20 per cent and the importance the current administration attached to employment creation, the country needed to look no further than the BPO sector particularly domestic and international contact centres.

He said the centres had a proven track record in creating labour intensive sustainable job opportunities, particularly for the youth.

“The sector employs mostly youth who are available in abundance particularly given the youth unemployment prevailing in Botswana. Secondly, the recent decoupling of the network from BTC to form BOFINET coupled with the heavy investments BOFINET has made to the development of the network infrastructure is expected to lower cost of both data and voice,” he said.

Mr Olebile said Botswana offered the lucrative IFSC dispensation which further enhanced the country’s competitiveness in attracting foreign direct investment which BPO companies were eligible for.

“Botswana also offers an abundance of IT graduates, other graduates and Form 5 leavers available in the Botswana market who are currently unemployed and can be employed in this sector,” he said.

Mr Olebile indicated that since 2015, Botswana had hosted about five reputable contact centre companies employing a combined 10 000 agents in both India and South Africa.

He said it was evident from these interactions that despite Botswana’s investment offering being a compelling one, it still needed to be made more attractive through availing tailor-made incentives targeting the BPO sector.

The BITC chief urged industry practitioners to engage and make proposals which would lead to the sector’s growth.

“Today’s deliberations will be useful in the development of the country’s value proposition, which once developed will guide interventions required to enable the growth of the sector locally,” said Mr Olebile.

He also implored Outsource Botswana to benchmark and explore possible areas of collaboration with Business Process Enabling South Africa who had successfully lobbied and continued to lobby the South African government to create an enabling environment for the sector to grow in that country.

For her part, acting deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry Ms Rosinah Bontsi said the forum was aimed at identifying incentives which needed to be put in place to attract more investment into targeted sectors and by extension, into Botswana.

She said her ministry was undertaking a number of reforms to position Botswana to host sophisticated global and multinational companies.

“Since October 2017, we launched the Botswana One Stop Service Centre based here at the BITC offices. The service centre’s role is to shorten the turnaround time for businesses that are seeking various government authorisations in Botswana by offering red carpet services from business registration, issuance of work and residence permits at no cost,” she said.

She also said her ministry was currently drafting a business facilitation law which would further enhance Botswana’s standing internationally as an investment destination of choice.

To stimulate Botswana’s private sector and elevate it to a higher level, she said, the ministry was also formulating and developing an Apex Model with emphasis on three key aspects; enterprise development, export development and investment promotion. ENDS