02 Sep 2018

Secretary for Economic and Financial Policy and also outgoing chairperson of board of directors at Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) has been described as a man of many financial talents which should be emulated.

Delivering a farewell speech, a board member Mr Gaamangwe Lebele praised Dr Taufila Nyamadzabo for his sterling performance at both the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, where honed his career from a young age as well as when he was BURS board chairperson, a position he held from 2007 to date.

Mr Lebele noted that Dr Nyamadzabo has been a force behind numerous developments which took place at BURS because he was keen in maintaining a good and conducive working environment, which in turn bred positive results for both the employees and the organisation.

He noted that as a result of his stewardship, BURS had grown in leaps and bounds because Dr Nyamadzabo ensured that BURS maintained its position as a key revenue provider in the country by contributing an average of 22 per cent to the GDP in an environment where previously reliable revenue sources were declining.

Mr Lebele further noted that during Dr Nyamadzabo’s tenure, general corporate governance standards improved.

Furthermore, he noted that when he joined BURS as the chairperson, the organisation collection stood at P15.8 billion and at his departure the collection stood at P42 billion and rising at the same time.

“It is also worth noting that when Dr Nyamadzabo assumed chairmanship of the BURS board, BURS had rudimentary infrastructure in terms of residential and office accommodation as well as ICT across the country. Under his leadership BURS negotiated and secured a new funding model from the then Ministry of Finance and Development Planning,” he said.

Today, BURS boasts modern day infrastructure such as Customs Inspection Scanners, state of the art ICT systems, the use of detector dogs among others, all of which contributed to improving operational efficiency of the organisation.

For his part, Dr Nyamadzabo chronicled his illustrious finance career with government.

He however said he was happy that he was going to serve the country at another high profile level. but ensured that it grew into a big entity.

Dr Nyamadzabo announced that on November 1, this year he shall be representing Botswana at the World Bank, as Non-Executive Director for sub-Saharan English speaking countries at the World Bank in Washington DC. ENDS