18 Jul 2023

Government continues to put measures in place in an effort to transform Botswana into a knowledge-based economy. 

An example of such efforts is President, Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi’s invitation of the African Finance Corporation (AFC) to guide government, through its expertise, in the ongoing process of privatising some of the parastatal organisations in the country. 

President Masisi extended the invitation to AFC through its executive director and head of financial services, Mr Sanjeev Gupta, who had paid a courtesy call on him recently. 

“Through its expertise, the AFC will go a long way in guiding the ongoing process of privatising the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) and Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB), among other parastatals in the country,” President Masisi said. 

He explained that the aim was also to establish competitive and profitable entities and he was therefore hopeful that government and AFC would find common ground as they assisted each other. 

“We want to tap from your talent and skills with respect to the larger economy and our drive to transform the economy and leapfrog in the next coming years. 

We are eager to get going and make sure that we get it right by inviting experts in various fields like yourselves,” President Masisi said. 

He thanked Mr Gupta for attending the US-Africa Business Summit, which was held in the country from July 11-14, saying his participation added much to its fruitfulness. 

“Thank you for attending the summit. We received candid feedback from a variety of people from abroad, neighbourhood, government and the private sector. 

We are glad that we are taking away positive lessons and I hope you also felt it was useful for what you do,” he said. 

For his part, Mr Gupta said AFC was a multi-lateral pan-African development financial institution that was set up 16 years ago by the sovereign African governments together with the private sector to establish an institution that was funded by African capital to develop Africa’s infrastructure. 

Mr Gupta said the corporation was made up of 41 African countries, including Botswana, with US$12.5 billion value sheet.

He indicated that the company had successfully invested close to US$14 billion of funding into infrastructure, industrial, telecommunications and technological projects across the continent. 

“The AFC has a unique business model of investment,  which is more focused on infrastructural development because we believe that investing successfully on the continent, time and money is spent on project preparation and project de-risking, which is the cornerstone of our strategy,” Mr Gupta said. ends