10 Feb 2021

The budget tabled before Parliament by Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka is elitist, excluding the interests of the economically marginalised, says Jwaneng/Mabutsane MP, Mr Mephato Reatile. 

Expressing his views during the budget debate on Tuesday, Mr Reatile said the wealthy were given incentives while the poor were burdened with increased taxation. 

He said the rich would benefit from the grace period given to those who were in arrears with their tax payments. 

He also said while large companies that traded in petroleum products enjoyed low corporate taxation, the poor would be burdened with an increase in the fuel levy and the introduction of tax on second hand vehicles. He said it would further erode the meagre income of the underprivileged. 

Mr Reatile said he was shocked that the country’s foreign exchange reserves could be significantly reduced under a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government since party stalwarts had claimed such a scenario would only take place if opposition parties ascended to power.

 On health, Mr Reatile said the country should have used the past year to plan better to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He said government should have worked with mining companies to ensure that mining areas such as Jwaneng, Orapa, Morupule and others developed COVID-19 isolation centres that could accommodate a hundred people or more. He said it would have had the effect of reducing pressure on Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital in Gaborone. Furthermore, he called for a national credit protection law to cushion people who lost their jobs while still having to service large scale loans such as mortgage and car payments. 

He said such a law would ensure a grace period for rentrenched employees to source new sources of funds and continue with their payments, instead of losing their belongings. 

A national unemployment insurance scheme, which he said had long been proposed by former Leader of the Opposition, the late Dr Kenneth Koma, was another initiative that the country needed to address the social needs of the unemployed, Mr Reatile proposed. With regard to his constituency, Mr Reatile called for a senior secondary school to be constructed in Jwaneng-Mabutsane, and for the improvement of roads linking the villages. ends