18 Apr 2021

 Parliament concluded business for the budget session on Friday by passing a motion tabled by Kgalagadi North MP, Ms Talitha Monnakgotla, calling for government to encourage big companies to list on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE).

The motion, that Parliament ‘requests government to promote listing by foreign and big companies in the BSE to enable Batswana to acquire shares in these companies thus promoting citizen empowerment,’ had already been tabled and exhaustively debated two weeks beforehand.

As the debate resumed on Friday, Ms Monnakgotla briefly concluded her arguments in response to MPs' previous comments before the matter was successfully put to a vote in the affirmation.

She said the taking up of shares by ordinary Batswana should be encouraged in order to diversify investment streams by individuals and households.

Ms Monnakgotla said other than in their countries of origin, big mining and telecommunication transnational corporations tend to list on big markets such as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) which accords locals the opportunity to buy shares, and a similar arrangement needs to be encouraged for the BSE.

The regional retail chain Choppies, which originated from Botswana got to list on the JSE, whereas some transnational corporations of external origin did not partake in the BSE when they operated in Botswana, citing the example of international mobile telephony services giant Orange, she said.

Before the motion was successfully passed, Parliament had rejected an attempt by Ghanzi South MP, Mr Motsamai Motsamai to introduce a motion to set aside business on the day's order paper so as to address a definite matter of urgent public importance.

Mr Motsamai pleaded that the National Assembly ‘as a matter of urgency requests government to allow private health providers, medical aid providers and other companies to help their clients with COVID-19 vaccine to relieve government of the overall burden for the COVID-19 vaccine acquisitions.’

Before there could be a debate on the merits of the matter, Parliament first had to make a decision on whether it was urgent, but the majority of MPs voted against.

In response, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Edwin Dikoloti said his ministry already had a Public Private Partnership (PPP) policy in place being applied.

He said private health providers were already assisting with the vaccine rollout, citing Debswana in the Boteti region, and discussions had been held with Business Botswana on how the private sector could further assist with the rollout.

But on procurement, Dr Dikoloti said the global practice was for pharmaceutical companies producing COVID-19 vaccines to only deal with governments and global health bodies like the World Health Organisation (WHO) not private corporations.

Dr Dikoloti said the Vaccine Committee had a representative from the private sector, Lucara Botswana managing director Ms Naseem Lahri to advice on how the private business could assist in funding procurement or in the rollout. ENDS