05 Mar 2023

The Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame, says the cost of printing money locally will be prohibitive. 

Minister Serame said this when responding to a suggestion made by Palapye MP, Mr Onneetse Ramogapi that to save funds, government should consider printing the currency locally and if that was too difficult, the foreign company that printed it should relocate to Botswana. 

Mr Ramogapi also raised a concern that the public service wage bill was too high compared to what was allocated to development projects. 

In his comments, Chobe MP, Mr Machana Shamukuni called for more automation of government services, which he said would help curtail corruption, especially at procurement level. 

“Such will also assist us at the Ministry of Justice by cutting the time it normally takes to dispose of cases,” Mr Shamukuni said. 

For his part, Maun West legislator, Mr Dumelang Saleshando argued that as the custodian of the national purse, the finance minister should always be vocal on issues of corruption, whether true of false, saying that would help in the reputation of the country. He also advised the ministry not to cease usage of cheques as it planned, saying such a move would affect the rural population that was still not technologically advanced. Ms Serame said she had noted MPs’ concerns such as poor implementation of projects. 

Earlier when presenting the finance ministry’s recurrent estimates for the 2023/2024 financial year, Minister Serame requested Parliament to approve over P3.311 billion, which represented an increase of 21.5 per cent from the financial year 2022/2023 when the ministry got P2 725 577 283. 

“The recurrent budget amounts to P2 557 582 240 or 77.2 per cent of the total proposal, while the development budget amounts to P754 066 000 or 22.8 per cent,” she said. 

Ms Serame indicated that the recurrent budget would see an increase of 5.9 or P2 414 159 250. 

“The increase is mainly due to factors such as an increase in tertiary tuition fees of P72 046 160 from the 2022/2023 to the 2023/2024 financial year, implementation of the Court of Appeal judgement on multiple-titling and grading of C-Band positions at P63 million, advertising and publicity for the envisaged contestation for the African Development Bank Presidency at P10 million,” she added.

She said funds would also cover hosting of the Eastern and Southern African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAMLAAG) council of ministers which would also require P10 million. On the development budget, Ms Serame had requested the approval of P754 million, which was an increase of P442 647 967 or 142 per cent from the P311 418 033 the ministry got for the same purpose in the financial year 2022/2023. 

“This increase is due to the recapitalisation of National Development Bank (NDB) which requires the sum of P500 million to be transformed into an agricultural bank,” she explained. 

Other envisaged development projects under her ministry she said, would be computerisation at P89 million, statistical surveys and studies at P52 million, consultancies P22 million, infrastructure totalling P90 million and state owned enterprises financing at P500 million. 

Consequently, Parliament approved the finance ministry’s budget for the next financial year. ends