18 Aug 2021

Legislators have unanimously agreed that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development be allocated supplementary funds amounting to P2.49 billion.

In their deliberations on the minister’s request on Tuesday, legislators’ approval was predominantly based on the urgent need to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and save lives of the citizenry.

Earlier in her presentation of the financial paper, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Ms Peggy Serame had requested Parliament to approve that a warrant of expenditure of about P2.49 billion be withdrawn from the Development Budget, comprising P2.36 billion and P134 million under Parts I and II, respectively.

The withdrawal, she said was made against the approved Domestic Development Fund (DDF) amount of P14.2 billion across programmes and projects in order to provide room within both consolidated and development funds to accommodate the funding requested.

Minister Serame explained that P2.36 billion would be used to fund four ministries of finance, health and wellness, defence, justice and security as well as tertiary education, research, science and technology.

The P134 million in Part II, she said would be used to augment the request under the defence, justice and security ministry.

She indicated that P1.13 billion was additional funding under the Ministry of Health and Wellness, with the bulk of it channeled towards the fight against COVID -19, including procurement of medical supplies, particularly vaccines and their transportation and storage.

Funding would also cover operational costs for the Treatment Centre and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital (SKMTH) as well as salaries and allowances for health professionals hired through the University of Botswana for COVID-19 emergency response needs.

The minister indicated that out of the P1.1bn requested for the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, about P401 million would be used to sponsor new students who met admission requirements.

She said P762 million would be used to restore the amount originally approved for tuition fees and allowances, which the ministry had used to pay outstanding invoices from tertiary service providers for financial year 2020/2021.

On the other hand, she said the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security required additional funding of P204.5 million under the Botswana Defence Force to cover the costs of deploying and sustaining troops in Mozambique, out of which about P70.4 million was requested under Part I while the remaining P134.1 million was requested under Part II of the Financial Paper.

“Part of the funds requested in Part I would be used by the finance ministry as contribution to the SADC Secretariat to finance the SADC Standby Force Deployment in Mozambique, which is determined by Member States’ additional assessed contributions,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Serame said some projects would be delayed with regards to implementation and they included those that had not yet started and new contracts had not been signed, while ongoing projects would, be allowed to continue to avoid disruption.

She also indicated that the latest domestic outlook, which was positive at the time of the budget in March this year, had weakened due to the impact of COVID-19 while the revenue forecasts had since been revised downwards and budget deficits widened for the remaining period of NDP 11 due to the pandemic.

Nonetheless, Ms Serame said the finance and economic development ministry would continue to monitor and update both the GDP growth and fiscal projections throughout the evolution of the pandemic and its associated impact. ENDS