13 Sep 2022

Botswana needs to formulate a framework for guiding the coordination of productivity, competitiveness and work ethic issues across all levels of the economy, says Mr Bonnie Jim.

Mr Jim, who is the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs’s productivity and competitiveness director, was speaking at a Botswana-EU stakeholder engagement in Kasane Monday.

He said currently, individual  sectors were making their own small efforts towards addressing productivity and competitiveness issues.

But for there to be an impact on the economy, team players from all sectors had to be included as they were interdependent, he said.

 Mr Jim also stressed the importance of developing a national productivity and competitiveness policy and strategy.

Noting that productivity was a requisite for economic growth and employment, he said the country needed to reach exceptional levels of productivity in order to attain high income status by 2036.

In 2019/20, he said, Botswana’s economic growth and standard of living rankings were at negative 1.38 per cent while in 2019, the country ranked 91 out of 141 countries in the World Economic Forum competitiveness.

A senior research fellow with Botswana Institute for Development of Policy Analysis (BIDPA), Dr Gape Kaboyakgosi said the envisaged policy should place emphasis on tripartitism of labour, business and government.

He said the development of the policy would strengthen economic relations between Botswana and EU.

 It would also elevate the long standing development cooperation between the two to a partnership, said Dr Kaboyakgosi.

He said the project was anchored on EU priorities as well as National Development Plan (NDP) 11 and 12, Reset Agenda and the Economic  Transformation and Recovery Programme.

The policy and strategy would set the tone for governance arrangements, productivity indicators and policy resource, he said.

Quoting the 2022 Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Yearbook, BIDPA research fellow Dr Raymond Lekobane said Botswana was ranked 58 out of 64 countries.

On economic performance, business and government efficiency as well as infrastructure, the country attained low scores of 60, 41, 57 and 61 respectively, he said.

Turning to sectoral analysis, Dr Lekobane said the trade, hotels and restaurants sector’s contribution to GDP generally had positive trends over the years.

As an example, he said it increased from 19.5 per cent in 2017 to 19.7 in 2019.

Dr Lekobane said in the same sector, the labour and productivity indicator exhibited growth between 1998 and 2018.

He said although there was productivity growth, the rate was affected by factors such as poor infrastructure and disasters.

Tourism expenditure for instance,  declined sharply in 2008 and 2020 due to global economic recession and C0VID-19 respectively, he said.

Dr Lekobane said Botswana’s competitiveness ranking over the years had been fluctuating.

Compared to other Sub-Saharan countries, Botswana was outperformed by Mauritius in terms of competitiveness while  it was at par with Namibia over the years except in 2015. Ends