21 Nov 2024

Kazungula Bridge One Stop Border Post (OSBP) remains one of  Botswana’s highest revenue generation border posts having collected a total of  over P266 million this year.

Speaking at the annual announcement of the Kazungula Time Management Survey (TMS)  recently at the border post, Botswana Unified Revenue Services acting Commissioner-Domestic Tax, Ms Segametsi Radibe-Michael said the revenue was a 19.9 per cent increase from 2023, which was P222 million.

She said since the last TMS conducted in 2023, the border had experienced a 91.2 per cent increase in traffic volumes, remaining one of Botswana’s strategic borders lying along the North-South Corridor.

She pointed out that this end line TMS was a follow-up to the first ever TMS baseline report presented last year, which identified bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the processing and measured time taken to process cargo and people across the border.

Ms Radibe-Michael said the baseline report recommended targeted interventions and corrective measures intended to improve service delivery and to reduce cross border clearance times.

She said the results showed that the time taken by outward transits had reduced from one hour 56 minutes to one hour 31 minutes.

The acting commissioner indicated that the World Bank Doing Business Report of 2020, ranked Botswana at number 55 against 190 countries in trading across borders translating to 86.7 per cent overall performance.

“It is our expectation, that with the implementation of recommendations from reports such as the TMS, we will be able to improve our country’s rankings and, in the process, give it a competitive advantage which will contribute positively towards sustainable economic development,” she said.

She said Botswana signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to have a significant impact in the inter- Africa Trade and position herself as one of the major players and beneficiaries under the AfCFTA

Ms Radibe-Michael said dwell times by transporters and traders at ports of entry, translated into lost opportunities and lost revenue that negatively impacted the competitiveness and profitability of the business entities, adding that strengthening border processes was imperative and beneficial for business.

She thanked Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for being instrumental in the implementation of various capacity-building initiatives such as TMS, training of trainers on One Stop Border Operations and customs valuation amongst others.

For his part, JICA representative Mr Takahiro Moriya said they were committed to supporting the Kazungula Bridge OSBP as a crucial border post for trade facilitation and economic development of the North-South Corridor and a convergence point for a lot of freight traffic.

He said JICA had been engaged for a long time since the beginning of the planning and designing of Kazungula Bridge OSBP and supported construction of facilities like the border posts, including OSBP equipment and the bridge through financing and consulting services.

He said JICA OSBP team not only supported the TMS, but also developed the OSBP operational procedures and capacity building to border officers and private sectors through workshop sensitisation and training of trainers.

Mr Takahiro said OSBP simplified operation of cross-border trading as outlined in the AFCFTA framework signed among 54 African countries in 2019 to promote a free trade market in the African continent. ENDS