01 Feb 2023

Efforts to designate Bokspits as a commercial border post have not been successful, Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame has revealed.

She was responding to a Ntlo ya Dikgosi question on Tuesday tabled by Specially Elected Kgosi Charles Hendricks who had asked if consideration would be given to upgrade Bokspits Border Post to a commercial facility.

 She explained that the designation of a border post for commercial purposes was subject to negotiation and agreement between two neighbouring countries.

  “South Africa has agreed to designate only four border posts that they share with Botswana for purposes of processing exports and Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds for goods leaving South Africa,” she said.

Identifying the four as Ramatlabama, Pioneer, Tlokweng and Martin’s Drift, Ms Serame said declaring the Bokspits Border Post as a commercial facility on the Botswana side only would be of no effect if the same was not done on the South African side.

“We will therefore continue to engage with our South African counterparts in this regard, with the hope that we will find a common ground on this subject,” said Ms Serame.

She stated that government prefered that all border posts were commercialised since Botswana Unified Revenue Services had deployed customs officers to most of the facilities but was constrained by shortage of resources.

  Minister Serame said other factors considered in the commercialisation of a border post were traffic volume and the level of economic activity in the facility’s vicinity.

Currently, traffic volume at Bokspits Border Post was too low to justify its commercialisation, she said.

The minister said the record of traffic for March-December 2022 stood at 2 771 incoming vehicles and 2 742 outgoing.

“This is an average of 308 incoming and 305 outgoing vehicles per month. Normally traffic at a commercial border post ranges between 2 000 and 5 000 vehicles per month,” she said. Ends