09 Feb 2020

Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka has indicated that Bank of Botswana has been using Oberthur Fiduciare of France and De La Rue of the United Kingdom to design and print Pula banknotes, banknote paper, polymer and security features on the currency since 1998. 

Responding to a question in Parliament, Minister Matsheka said De La Rue was awarded the tender to print all banknote denominations (P10, P20, P50, P100, P200) during the period 1999 to 2018. 

Dr Matsheka said the bank engaged Oberthur, then known as Francois Charles Oberthur to print the P10 banknotes in 1999 and P20 banknotes in 2005. 

The entire contract, he said, was awarded to Oberthur Fiduciare, who are the current printers and the bank is fully satisfied with the service from the two companies, hence no other companies were engaged to supply the services. 

“The data prior to 2005 is archived in accordance with the bank’s data retention policy and therefore not readily available. However, for 2005 and 2019, Oberthur was paid over P18 million while De La Rue was paid over P313 million for services rendered from 2006 to 2018,” he said. 

He added that the printing contract is awarded for a period of five years in accordance with the Bank’s Procurement Regulations, which are compliant with the rules of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board. 

Further, the minister said a selective tender process was followed, whereby recognised security printing companies were invited to submit bids indicating their technical competence, technology, experience and financial proposal.

Dr Matsheka said Canadian banknotes and Crane currency from the United States and Orell Fussli Security printing company from Switzerland also submitted bids. 

The award of the tender to Oberthur in 2018, he said, was based on the outcome of a comprehensive due diligence exercise including factory visits of experts from the bank. 

He stated that an internal task force was constituted to do an initial evaluation, make a recommendation to the tender committee, a second level evaluation and provide a recommendation to the Governor for final determination once the tender documents are received. 

Selebi Phikwe legislator, Mr Dithaphelo Keorapetse had asked the minster to update Parliament on the number of times the aforementioned international companies have been engaged by Bank of Botswana for their services and the level of satisfaction of Bank of Botswana. 

Mr Keorapetse also requested the minister to state names of other companies engaged to provide such service as well as the amount paid to each. ENDS