23 Sep 2018

Sowa Town civic leaders are skeptical about the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry’s (MITI)newly introduced provisions for the Doing Business Reform Roadmap.

The skepticism was expressed during comments on a consultative briefing by principal industrial affairs officer, Ms Oreitshwarele Lerubisi recently where she updated them on some changes on the Doing Business Reform Roadmap.

In her briefing, Ms Lerubisi said the Industrial Development Bill of 2018 proposes to improve and review the Industrial Act of 2006 and to align the new act with the Doing Business Reform Roadmap approved by cabinet through a presidential directive.

She highlighted that there have been concerns that investors were shying away from Botswana due to the processes potential investors had to undergo to start businesses.

This, she said, was impacting negatively on the country since investors were opting for other countries.

Outlining the proposed changes, Ms Lerubisi pointed out that the reform roadmap recommended that organisations should monitor their adherence to legal, ethical and safety standards.

She said in the new provisions the director of industrial affairs and not the minister, as was currently the case has been given the powers to assume the responsibility of licensing manufacturing enterprises.

She said the director would also do the supervision, investigation and search of manufacturing enterprises.

The director would also keep and maintain a register of manufacturing enterprises, making it accessible to members of the public for inspection at all times during business hours.

Furthermore, Ms Lerubisi also stated that industrial licensing committees, industrial licensing authority and regional appeals boards would no longer exist, with all appeals going directly to the minister.
She said the aim was to simplify the licensing process as recommended under the Doing Business Reform Roadmap, noting that only companies with health and safety issues would be licensed directly by the minister.

Airing their concerns, councillors noted that the proposed changes could worsen the situation as the country was already seeing an escalation in corruption, what more with only one person dealing with the issues, adding that there could be situations where some foreigners came under the pretext that they were investors while they had other motives.

Councillor Vuyiswa Jane said having licensing committees was helpful as they analysed the proposals ensuring that all the necessary documentations had been provided.

He opined that instead of doing away with committees, areas deemed responsible for delays of issuing licences could have been addressed instead rather than saddling one person with the responsibilities of researching, investigating and issuing licences.

Mr Jane was of the view that some business people would do anything to get what they wanted hence corrupting licensing officers to get trade licences.

Sharing similar sentiments was Mr Botho Ntirang, who said the new provisions were not transparent in that they were turning assessment from being done by committee to just one person. Ends