08 Mar 2020

Bank of Botswana has performed its functions exceptionally well and there has never been any concern from local commercial banks or any international financial organisation about the safety and security of funds under its custody.

This was said by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka when responding to a question from Member of Parliament for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando.

Dr Matsheka said by law, the central bank was the official depository of government funds and acts as a banker to the government, commercial banks, foreign financial institutions and other central banks.

He said the bank had never failed to submit its annual report in its 44-year history.

The financial statements have been audited by each of the big four firms at various times and a clean audit report has been issued by the external auditors for all these years.

Dr Matsheka said the bank publishes its statement of financial position in the Government Gazette on a monthly basis.

He further pointed out that the bank reconciled all the statements of the accounts it held with external counterparties and there were no outstanding reconciliation items.

All the counterparties holding financial assets on behalf of the bank, he said, were required to confirm their holdings with the bank’s external auditors at each year-end, and there had been no issue to date.

The minister explained that the Office of the Auditor General was responsible for ensuring safe custody of government funds.

He further said, “All cash inflows and outflows are processed through the Government Remittance Account (GRA) and the bank also manages the Liquidity Portfolio Account for short term investment and Pula Fund Account for long term investment.”

Dr Matsheka said his ministry had procedures and arrangements in place for investments which entail sweeping arrangements between GRA and Liquidity Portfolio and Pula Fund.  The ministry issues instructions to BoB through the Accountant General, regarding minimum and maximum thresholds to be maintained in those accounts and the thresholds were influenced by the expenditure and revenue patterns of government, resulting in prudence cash management.

Dr Matsheka said the Public Finance Management Act had centralised the opening of all the bank accounts for government to the Accountant General.

He further said all payment transactions through government accounts were subject to approval process and on monthly basis reconciliations were carried out to validate the entries in the bank statements.

Maun West legislator had asked the minister to state facts around BoB following reports that funds were missing from the treasury.

He said he was concerned that despite the reports and Botswana being grey listed, the minister had not said anything.

MP Saleshando, who is the Leader of the Opposition, further asked the minister to explain why the audit reports never mentioned missing funds. ENDS