11 Feb 2025

 Government has identified key strategic priorities for the financial year 2025/2026 to aid in fulfilling the commitments of the new Botswana geared towards a rapid and inclusive economic growth and achieving a social equitable development that benefits all Batswana.

Presenting budget proposals for the financial year 2025/26 in Gaborone on Monday, Minister of Finance, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe said the areas included Modernising and Transforming Infrastructure; Improving Quality of Life; Innovation and Digital Transformation; and Supporting a Private Sector Export Led Growth.

Modernising of Infrasture

Minister Gaolathe said under this priority area, critical areas such as schools, healthcare facilities and housing were underdeveloped in many areas, particularly in rural and remote areas, calling for a need to upgrade and expand infrastructure ecosystem to unlock economic opportunities and in doing so, enhanced the quality of life for a greater number of citizens.

He also said the state of road networks, rail, power, water and sewage infrastructure was not adequate to facilitate the vision of building a deep and inclusive economy.

In addition, he said the absence of adequate infrastructure to support modern agriculture coupled with the lack of world-class airports, presented a significant barrier to government’s ambition of becoming a regional logistics hub.

Mr  Gaolathe said a development budget of P11.54 billion was proposed to fund infrastructure development projects however, indicated that modernising and transforming infrastructure could not be achieved in one financial year as it was a process that needed time and money.

In that regard, he said that leveraging Public-Private partnerships (PPPs) would play a vital role in mobilising resources needed to accelerate the agenda and deliver projects effectively.

He further said government was advanced on creating a legal framework for better management of PPP projects, the draft bill of which was expected to be finalised and presented for consideration by Parliament during the 2025/2026 financial year.

He said once it came to effect, it would foster a strong private sector partnership and provide a platform for domestic and international consortia to optimise the full benefit of the PPP delivery model thereby, reducing the fiscal strain on the government budget and improve the growth-investment nexus.

Minister Gaolathe said other key infrastructure development projects under Modernising and Transforming Infrastructure included completion of water supply, network and sanitation projects at Molepolole, Kanye, Sowa Town, construction of primary hospitals with at least 50 beds in Tsabong, Tonota and Shoshong.

He said solar energy presented a remarkable opportunity for the nation with abundant sunshine throughout the year and Botswana was ideally suited to harness the clean and sustainable resource to power households, industries and communities.

Improving Quality of Life

He said a development budget of P9.81 billion was proposed for this priority which included strengthening human capital development, modernising education and healthcare systems, supporting vulnerable groups as well as availing economic opportunities to ensure long-term prosperity and equality for all.

One of the areas he touched on under this priority was the need to increase excellence in Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions by leveraging on tried and tested Vocational Technical Education Training (TVET) models in countries such as South Korea, Germany and Finland.

He said government was developing a robust TVET Policy with an agenda anchored on various pursuits such as agriculture, jewelry, multimedia, Artificial Intelligence, sports and manufacturing.

Innovation and Digital Transformation

Zooming in on this priority, Minister Gaolathe said a development budget of P1.47 billion was proposed to support this area.

He said the budget would fast track the delivery of the national digital transformation strategy known as SmartBots with a view to accelerate digital transformation across government, the economy and the society.

In order to achieve this initiative, he said government aimed to close the connectivity gap across the country through the implementation of the village connectivity program.

To this end, he said Phases two, three and four of the village connectivity programme connecting over 1 000 public facilities across different villages would be completed during the 2025-2026 financial year.

 He also said during the 2025-2026 financial year, government would connect over 500 schools to the internet, expand connectivity of private research and education institutions through the Botswana Research and Education Network and roll out the Digital Competency Framework aimed at building digital literacy.

Supporting Private Sector Export Led Growth

This priority highlights government commitment to advance an export led growth model with a development budget of P0.93 billion proposed to support the agenda.

He said government would support SMEs by addressing existing bottlenecks such as lack of access to finance and markets.

Mr Gaolathe said government would continue to promote entrepreneurial development through implementation of free trade agreements such as the Southern Africa Development Community-Economic Partnership Agreement (SADC-EPA) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

He further said that they were determined to attract quality investments and government had completed the feasibility study on the establishment of commercial dispute resolution framework.

Currently, he said Botswana had no court dedicated to resolving commercial disputes and it took an average of 660 days to resolve a commercial case hence would establish commercial courts to reduce turnaround time to resolve commercial cases in 2025/2026 financial year. ENDS