Change business focus-Business Botswana chief

The current economic climate of soft commodity prices provides an opportune time for the government and stakeholders to change their business focus.

It adds impetus for Botswana to reform the business environment and usher in a dynamic, resilient, globally competitive and diversified private sector,” Leta Mosienyane, President of Business Botswana said during the De Beers and Chatham House conference  in Gaborone. It was held under the theme: Connecting Resources and Society in Botswana.

“Therefore any support to the business sector should focus on reforms that will improve the business environment especially in the areas where we are lagging behind,” urged Mosienyane, singling out delays in issuing out investments permits and work permits, which have also been identified in the latest World Bank ‘doing business’ report.

Mosienyane also challenged the private sector to continue negotiating with the government in attracting global talent. “Investors, both domestic and foreign, need certainty and predictability in order to plan their operations. It is important once again, for the private sector to continue to engage the government to ensure that a transparent, predictable and objective system for recruiting global talent is put in place,” he said.

Speaking at the same event, University of Botswana economics senior lecturer, Malebogo Bakwena, called on policy makers to set up targets and time frames when formulating and implementing government programmes so that they will be able to measure their success. She said at times some national programmes were made without set out and stipulated timeframes, making it difficult to measure their achievements.

“We need to set time and specific targets when implementing plans. The policy makers should ask themselves what the target is. For example in the manufacturing sector, what is the target growth, like for example one percent every year or 0, 5 percent every year rather than just saying we want to stimulate the manufacturing sector,” said Bakwena.

Bakwena also said Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) should try to build partnerships with established companies so that they will be able to develop into big companies. “Collaboration is also important because it can assist the SMEs to penetrate the international market,” she said. Bakwena said some SMEs in other countries were able to compete globally through forging alliances with big companies.

“For example the Mauritius textile industry networked and forged alliances with foreign companies and through that they were able to compete globally,” said Bakwena. Mosienyane used the opportunity to urge government to speed up the privatisation of parastatals, lamenting that the process remains painfully slow.

“But we are hopeful that the Initial Public Offering of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL) will finally take place before the end of the year. The IPO has been postponed on several occasions and therefore risks undermining our credibility in the investment community,” said Mosienyane.