07 Feb 2022

Government will restructure ministries from April 1 this year and implement structural reforms in the economic and public sector in effort to cut costs.
Finance and economic development minister, Ms Peggy Serame said this delivering her maiden national budget speech today.

Ms Serame said the number of ministries, however, would not increase and no additional expenditures would be required.
She also indicated that government was actively considering the sub-committee’s proposals to rationalise the number of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) by merging, closing and divesting of government stakes in some of them.

That, she said, would result in greater efficiency in the SOE sector, reduced budgetary subventions, and reduction in the scope of government activity in favour of increased space for the private sector.
Meanwhile, Ms Serame said government had taken a decision to establish Botswana National Public Health Institute (BNPHI) as part of the long term strategy to deal with future public health pandemics such as COVID-19.

She said the institute would provide national leadership and expertise in driving the public health function nationwide while linking the country to the global health community in the prevention and control of diseases and epidemics.She said the BNPHI would be a critical foundation for the public health delivery system and would provide early warning signals of health risks and hazards, compile data to support outbreak investigations as well as identify the causes of diseases to aid treatment and prevention.

Further, she said the legislative review was needed to keep pace with domestic and global developments to deal with current and emerging challenges as well as support the Reset and Transformation Agenda. ENDS