13 Aug 2020

Parliament has passed Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) Amendment Bill and Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Amendment Bill.

The BURS bill sought to amend BURS Act to align it with current corporate service trends as well as improve administration and enforcement of revenue laws with the objective of optimising tax revenue through efficient and effective tax collection.

On one, the BDF Bill sought to amend the BDF Act in order to address a challenge that BDF was facing with respect to filling a vacancy of judge advocate general.

When responding to legislators’ contributions to the BURS bill, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka said the sought amendments were necessitated by the fact that BURS, as a strategic institution that accrued revenue for government, should be protected.

Furthermore, he said given the strategic importance of BURS, it could not afford service disruptions occasioned by orders of attachment.

‘“Any service disruption could negatively impact provision of vital revenue to government of Botswana’, ‘’ he stated.

He also stated that it was crucial that the arm that generated revenue for government should operate without interferences that had potential of affecting certainty of collection of tax and protection of taxpayer information.

Dr Matsheka further stated that it was important to increase board members from seven to nine members in order to introduce more skills into the board and for consistencies of meetings and quorum formation.

He said the amendment to increase the skills required in the board including ICT was essential since BURS was moving towards embracing ICT services.

Meanwhile, Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Kagiso Mmusi said the BDF amendment bill would ensure that the military justice system was operational as well as overseeing administration of military justice.

He further assured legislators that the position of judge advocate general required had no name tag to it, but would be filled by whoever would be considered qualified.

He was responding to opposition MPs who had expressed reservations on the proposed bill saying the position might be reserved for a specific individual.

MP for of Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi and Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse of Selebi Phikwe West, had proposed amendments to the proposed bill that whoever was recruited from outside the defence force should be a former officer of the defence force.Mr Mmolotsi had also suggested that the bill be amended so that persons recruited for the position of judge advocate general and assistant from outside the army, should have not attained the age of 55 at the time of recruitment.

On the other hand, Mr Keorapetse had suggested that a person qualified to practice as a judge advocate general should be qualified to practice as an advocate or attorney of High Court of Botswana and had been qualified for not less than 10 years to practice as an advocate or attorney. ENDS