14 Jun 2021

Smuggling of goods into and outside Botswana has been identified as one of the major gaps that needed to be closed to protect the economy of the country.

Addressing Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) staff at Maitengwe Border Post recently, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Ms Peggy Serame implored them to be creative, innovative and adopt new technologies to be either at par with or more advanced to deal with those in the smuggling business.

The minister said it was crucial to close all leakages through which money was dripping, to boost and even continue to grow the economy.

She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought many new changes, dealing the economy a hard blow, hence the need to revive it by collecting taxes.

Ms Serame said domestic mobilisation was at a centre stage of ensuring that the country had enough money, adding that at the moment, the country was relying on foreign reserves, and it was thus important to resuscitate them and boost the economy by collecting taxes.

She said this following a brief from BURS officer in charge, Mr Lucky Vincent, who had said from the time the border closed on April 4, 2020, following the outbreak of COVID-19, until it re-opened on December 15, 2020, the office had recorded 40 cases of goods smuggling.

Mr Vincent revealed that the office collected P130 600 from charges for the smuggled goods as opposed to P16 600 in the previous year before the pandemic, which he said showed that cross border crime increased drastically, when the border was closed. 

He however said his team was ready to deal with it.

He stated that they had also engaged their Zimbabwean counterparts, who promised to reinforce security to reduce smuggling.

On other issues, Mr Vincent said although they were front line officers, dealing with clients mainly from South Africa on transit to Zimbabwe, they had not yet received their COVID-19 vaccine. 

He, thus, requested that the team be considered as they were among those at high risk.

In response, the minister said something was being done to have them take the vaccine, as there was an agreement, in principle, for them to be among the first to get the jab. 

She however cautioned that it would be subject to availability. ENDS