17 Dec 2023

Botswana’s economy continues to decline owing to ongoing geopolitical tensions, which have resulted in global inflationary pressures and weak demand for diamonds.

Presenting the supplementary estimates of expenditure from the consolidated and development funds on December 15, the Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame said the effects of drought have also added to the slow growth profile.

“This has negatively affected government revenues which in turn affected the size of budget allocations,” she said.

Ms Serame said the approved budget for the current financial year was P60.3 billion for ministerial recurrent budget and P21.01 billion for the development budget.

She said the proposed supplementary estimates on the other hand amounted to P1.42 billion, which she said was requested by nine ministries and one extra ministerial department.

She said reasons for requesting supplementary funds by the various ministries included catering for adjustments of salaries, basic salary allowances, overtime, service charges and C-band salary arrears payments among others.

Ms Serame further explained that her ministry would use part of its requested supplements for payment of 40 per cent of seasonal loans for rain-fed farmers across the country, who obtained loans from CEDA and the National Development Bank (NDB) through the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme.

“This will relief farmers from the effects of crop failure due to drought for this cropping season following the declaration by government of the 2022/23 as a drought year,” she said.

Ms Serame  said part of the funds would establish and kickstart weather-based crop insurance scheme of  the recently launched Temo Letlotlo.

Ms Serame also talked about supplementary feeding to primary school children and vulnerable groups at health facilities, saying additional funds towards such were necessitated by increased prices in food commodities such as beans.

She noted that other entities that needed additional funds included AirBotswana, which she said was still struggling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as passenger numbers had not yet picked up.

“The situation was also worsened by the continued rise in aviation fuel prices, which have more than doubled from the pre-COVID period. This continues to hinder the airline's recovery and growth,” she said.

Ms Serame also explained that the proposals for supplementary estimates under the development budget would be sought from slow spending projects through development budget reallocation, which effectively means that it will not increase the 2023/24 annual budget provision. The supplementary estimates are currently before Parliament for debate. ENDS