07 Dec 2023

Societies and associations in Botswana have been urged to avoid being de-registered by completing their electronic re-registration before the February 2024 deadline.

Department of Civil and National Registration senior registration officer, Ms Malebogo Kgari explained this during Lobatse full council meeting recently.

She said that the electronic re-registration was in line with amended Societies Act passed by Parliament in February 2022.

Ms Kgari pointed that Section 32 of the amended Societies Act provided for re-registration of societies with the Registrar of Societies through the electronic system.

She said the Registrar of Societies had moved from manual registration to the automated registration.

Ms Kgari said societies such as churches, football and other sporting clubs, social clubs, burial societies, community based organizations, charitable organizations, farmers’ associations, professional associations, taxi associations and others should undertake this electronic re-registration.

“Our re-registration commenced on 24 November, 2023 and will come to an end on the 24 February, 2024. We have around 10 000 societies in our manual records. The expectation is that every society registers online. This exercise is strictly done online,” she said.

Ms Kgari emphasized that any society, which fails to meet February 2024 deadline would automatically be de-registered.

“If any society fails to re-register online before the deadline, it means that it will automatically fall off,” she said.

She said the re-registration was free, however, she said subsequent submission of annual returns would be charged P50.

Ms Kgari said requirements for re-registration included submission of the constitution of the society in PDF format, registration certificate, financial report and bank statement, list of members in excel form and annual returns. She said the re-registration could be done by any member in the executive committee of the society.

She said while the old certificates had no expiry dates, the new certificates would only be valid for 12 months and societies would need to renew their certificates every year. Ms Kgari decried the fact that many societies were not complying with submission of the annual returns.

She said the online registration was being done through the government portal, www.gov.bw. Ends