07 Feb 2022

Investing in economic and social infrastructure remains key in underpinning future growth and improved livelihoods.

In her maiden national budget speech she delivered February 7, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Ms Peggy Serame said it was thus critical for government to continue prioritising and investing in water and sanitation infrastructure and services across the country.

Ms Serame added that while investing in new infrastructure, it was also critical to ensure that existing infrastructure was maintained and not wasted through leakages.

“To address water shortages and sanitation challenges, government provided major projects which are ongoing, including the Maun water and sanitation upgrade, Gaborone-Lobatse water pipeline and the Kanye sanitation project,” she said.

She added that government recognised that access to serviced land played a critical role in development in terms of land for both residential and commercial.

“There are 13 ongoing land servicing projects across the country, at various stages of implementation and will address the backlog in the availability of serviced land,” she said.

Also, she said to accelerate land allocation in the face of constraints on the availability of serviced land, unserviced plots would be allocated to Batswana in the 2022/2023 financial year.

Ms Serame also indicated that with regard to provision of electricity, an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) was approved in 2020, to promote competition in power generation by facilitating the involvement of Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

She said the implementation of the IRP was expected to satisfy local electricity demand from domestic generation facilities in order to be energy secure and to create surplus capacity for export.

Ms Serame noted that the IRP proposed a number of energy projects to be implemented by 2030, to meet the growing demand-supply mismatch and the growth of the country’s carbon footprint.

Such projects, she said included the 200MW of large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) generation capacity, a total of 35MW smaller grid-tied solar PV projects, a 300MW coal-fired power station, 100MW of coal bed methane (CBM) gas power plants as well as 200MW concentrated solar power (CSP) plant and 500 MW from wind power.

Furthermore, she said Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) had signed three Power Purchases Agreement (PPAs) with Independent Power Producers (IPPs); two of which are for grid-tied solar PV Plants in Shakawe and Bobonong and the other one for a 100 MW CBM facility at Kodibeleng.

She said construction at the two solar PV sites was scheduled to commence this month (February), and commercial operation anticipated to start in July this year.

Ms Serame has also said BPC was retendering for a 50MW solar PV project for Jwaneng and six small scale grid-tied solar PV plants for Tutume, Kasane, Serowe, Tsabong, Kang and Charleshill as no suitable investors were identified for the sites from the original tender process. ENDS