Business Botswana (BB) President Neo Nwako has called out government on over regulation which in turn frustrates the business sector, particularly the unrealistic compliance to land lease and concessions.
Addressing captains of industry during the Business Botswana national business conference held in Francistown this week, Nwako said the regulatory systems are increasingly frustrating entrepreneurs.
He said these include over regulation of business activities, zero compliance to Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), increased & unrealistic cost of compliance to land leases/concessions and lack of an efficient transport framework,” highlighted President.
He said lack of an efficient framework for the transport sector to regulate the sector is detrimental to the industry and government. “Wherein there is no Transport Act to regulate the industry – which has been to the detriment not only to the industry but government revenue opportunities. With this state of affairs, we cannot overcome the issues of concern facing our country.”
Nwako also called for the urgent fine tuning of the National Transformative Strategy (NTS) to capture critical economic drivers. “Several issues of concern face the country like unemployment, poverty and inequality, slow diversification of the economy and climate change,” highlighted Nwako. He said all these call for concerted and collaborate action by the private sector and government. He further reiterated that private sector is greatly concerned at the momentum towards a private sector led economy.
“There is urgent need to grow impetus on this matter. This would assist in addressing concerns of slow implementation of many initiatives. These include inefficiencies in expenditure, rising perceptions of corruption that needs improvement,” continued Nwako.
He pointed out factors which frustrated economic growth, diversification and the ambition of a high income economy.
Meanwhile Vice President Slumber Tsogwane in his official opening remarks urged private sector to marshal its manufacturing capacity in order to leverage on the Africa Free Trade Continental Trade Agreement (AfCTA) which is a getaway to industrialisation.
He said if the business sector enhanced its manufacturing muscle, it would reduce the country’s over reliance on the mining sector. Particularly as Botswana continues to experience headwinds in the Global Diamond market.
“Lower consumer demand and global economic weakness has lowered the demand outlook for diamonds, hence resulting in the current slower economic growth than had been anticipated at the time of the 2024/245 national budget session,” Tsogwane said.
He encouraged participants of the National Business Conference to critically propose reviews and reforms to regulatory environment in order to make Botswana’s business environment conducive.
“The intended outcome of the 17th National Business Conference is a decisive shift in the economy through identifying opportunities for actions to realise an export orientated private sector led economy,” emphasised Tsogwane.
The two and half day conference was held under the theme, “Invigorating Economic Transformation through the Private Sector.”
