Botswana Unified Revenue Services under collects
27 Feb 2019
Botswana Unified Revenue Services has recorded an overall under performance of revenue collection for the 10 months period from April 2018 to January 2019.
Presenting to Parliament, his ministry’s consolidated and development funds estimates, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Kenneth Matambo illustrated a 10.6 per cent revenue collection decline, which he attributed to income tax and VAT, failing to meet their targets.
He said the BURS under-performance was against the original targets that were revised downwards to take into account some factors that had a negative effect on tax revenue collection.
These include the low global demand for diamonds experienced during 2018/2019 and the tough trading environment in the real estate and retail sector.
Minister Matambo however indicated that BURS continued to be optimistic in revenue collection as some strategies had been put in place to turnaround the negative performance and meet the target going forward.
He said in an effort to meet its target, BURS would intensify debt collection, strengthen the verification of refunds before payment and collect the outstanding withholding tax and VAT from imported service from government projects.
He said his ministry continued to undertake several reform programmes and projects aimed at contributing to the delivery of quality service to the nation.
He highlighted the Public Investment Management Programme as one of the key reforms under implementation that had registered a significant progress.
“A Public Investment Management Programme which was developed as part of NDP 11 is under implementation across the country and it has ensured that NDP 11 is aligned to Vision 2036,” he said.
The programme, he said, had also provided a coherent framework within which project identification, specification and implementation could occur systematically.
In addition to the programme, he indicated that his ministry had developed sound macro-economic forecasting tools capabilities, which are a set of integrated macro-economic tools and techniques that continue to enable the ministry to produce increasingly reliable series of economic forecasts.
This, he said, had been seen to enhance budget credibility and reliability as the ministry continued to embed performance information into budget allocation documentation and improve links between budget allocation and national objectives.
With regard to financial inclusion, Mr Matambo noted that the ministry was in the process of drafting the credit information bill as part of implementing the national financial inclusion roadmap and strategy that runs from 2015 to 2021.
He stated that the bill would seek to improve access to both negative and positive financial information, which would improve access to credit extended to small businesses and citizens.
Minister Matambo stated that there was an ongoing draft of a legislation that would establish a collateral registry in the country to enable households and businesses to register their movable assets as collateral to get credit from lenders.
Furthermore, Minister Matambo proposed P1.4 billion as his ministry’s budget allocation for 2019/2019, which represents an increase of 24.4 per cent compared to the 2018/2019 approved budget.
The proposed recurrent budget stands at P950 million or 64.8 per cent, while the development budget amounts to P515 million or 35.2 per cent.
Mr Matambo further attributed the significant increase in the proposed development budget to the re-capitalisation of BSB and NDB.
The proposed budget, he said would be shared among the ministry’s programmes such as the computerisation process, which would get P30 million while statistical surveys and studies would amount to P60.5 million.
The ministry’s consultancies will be allocated P21.6 million.
He said P403 million of the development budget would cater for on-going development projects, which include revenue offices and staff housing at Hukuntsi, Shakawe, Charlsehill as well as the design of Financial Intelligence Agency office building and Public Procurement and Assert Disposal Board building structural assessment.
The recurrent budget proposal for 2019/2020, he said, had declined by 0.3 per cent over the approved budget of 2018/2019.
He attributed the decline to the privatisation of Botswana Stock Exchange, which had since ceased receiving subvention from government. ENDS
Source : BOPA
Author : Thato Mosinyi
Location : GABORONE
Event : Parliament
Date : 27 Feb 2019
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