18 Feb 2020

Specially elected Member of Parliament, Ms Beauty Manake has called for the transformation of the National Development Bank (NDB) to an agricultural financing agency.

Debating the 2020/21 national budget proposals in Parliament on Monday, Ms Manake, who is also Assistant Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, said the sector had the potential to diversify the economy and create employment opportunities, hence the need for farmers to get adequate support. She said the budget allocated to the ministry was small yet there was a lot to be done.

Previously, government adequately financed agriculture, building facilities aimed at improving the beef sector, but were under-utilised. Selebi-Phikwe West MP, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse said Botswana should learn from other countries such as Dubai which had managed to diversify their economies.

He said several countries had been able to diversify their economies and reach high income status in the process. In other issues, Mr Keorapetse said as negotiations between government and De Beers mining company continued this year, there should be transparency, saying no one knew what the original agreement entailed.

He further said Botswana should increase its ownership in De Beers, saying Saudi Arabian government ended up acquiring 98 per cent share in the oil company.

At the moment, government has a 15 per cent stake in De Beers and the MP opined that an increase in shareholding would result with increased revenues.

MP Keorapetse further said government was faced with a huge waste in its spending, saying he did not know the importance of the DailyNews as it repeated the news read on Radio Botswana and therefore the national newspaper should be shelved.

The Selebi Phikwe West legislator further called for the reopening of the BCL mine, saying he was happy that an investor had shown interest in the copper-nickel mine and further that  copper prices had improved. ENDS