07 Apr 2022

The Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI), has been commended for consultations on the review of National Investment Strategy for Botswana.

Speaking at a consultative workshop in Kasane on April 6, Chobe District Council Secretary, Mr Esau Mbanga said the seminar showed bottom-up planning and the need to consult stakeholders, especially at district level, to have opportunity to influence the review process.

He said the workshop was important as it was aligned to the government Reset Agenda that called for mindset change.

Mr Mbanga said the review was critical given the advent of COVID-19 that had caused economic shocks on all sectors across the globe.

He noted that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) had not been spared and investment flows, especially to developing and less developed countries, had been drastically reduced.

He said Botswana had also been adversely affected by economic effects of COVID-19 with the country’s economic growth recording a sharp decline, including that of different sectors such as mining, manufacturing, services and tourism.

“It should be noted that even before COVID-19, Botswana was not performing well in terms of attracting investors and there was a decline in FDI. It should however be noted that some homegrown companies such as Choppies, Letshego and others expanded in the region,” he said.

Mr Mbanga said the review of the strategy came at an opportune time and  he hoped that the new one would propose innovative pathways for attracting as well as retaining investors in Botswana and would  place the country as number one destination of choice for investors, by aligning with international best practices in FDI promotion.

Giving the objectives of the review, Director of Research and Policy Development at MITI, Mr Gaoakanye Tapela said Botswana did not attract much FDI as compared to competitors both in the region and outside.

Mr Tapela said there was urgent need to come up strategic pathways to attract FDI and for the strategy to reflect the views of Batswana, the ministry decided to conduct consultative workshops around the country. The workshops target business people and other stakeholders to obtain first-hand views regarding economic potential of their respective jurisdictions.

He said through the workshops, local business enabling environment analysis would be conducted.

Mr Tapela said in addition to the Kasane workshop, others were conducted in Palapye, Selebi Phikwe, Francistown followed by Ghanzi and Gaborone.

A resident consultant of Geopolicity World Consultant, which is engaged to do the strategy review, Mr Sennye Obuseng said a country’s blue print master plan for maximising the quantity and quality of its responsible investment was to have a good National Investment Strategy that accelerated growth in the private sector’s contribution to GDP exports, government revenue and employment, amongst others.

“A good strategy should be future compliant, support digitalisation, green economy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental, Social and Governance,” said Mr Obuseng.

One of the participants, Mr Stephen Makhura of Maitsholo Investment said there was need to harmonise some policies to avoid instances whereby an investor would move from one department to the other for one issue.

He further said since Botswana was a unitary state that opted for one size fits all approach, all good programmes did not bear fruits.

Pandamatenga Commercial Farmers Association chairperson, Mr Ryan Neal said although Pandamatenga was seen as the country’s success story, more needed to be done such as educating land owners on how to efficiently use the land.

Mr Mist Setaung of Dreams Safaris applauded the government for efforts of attracting investors into the country. He, however, said investors who ended up sourcing funding from the government should be avoided.

Proposing a vote of thanks, Pandamatenga, Lesoma, Kazungula (PALEKA) Trust deputy chairperson, Ms Sarah Kabimba pleaded for the feedback from the countrywide strategy consultations. ENDS