Serame calls for a resilient economy post COVID-19
The Minister of Finance and Economic Development Planning, Peggy Serame has challenged the nation to leverage on technology to build a strong economic system post COVID-19 era.
“The build back agenda at national, company, or individual level must take into account the lessons learnt from this pandemic and build ecosystems that are resilient, leveraging technology and partnerships, while we develop and monetize skills for the next few decades to achieve a green recovery,” said Serame.
She said the government intends on building back a more inclusive and resilient economy post the COVID-19 pandemic. The Minister was speaking at a conference dubbed: ‘Understanding the Botswana Landscape in a Covid Era, Navigating our New Reality’ held recently. Serame bemoaned that almost all economic sectors in the domestic economy experienced negative growth in 2020, resulting in the overall contraction of 8.5 percent in 2020. According to the Minister, the negative growth was worse than the originally-forecast contraction of 7.9 percent, indicating impact of the outbreak, and partly due to technical adjustments to the GDP figures. Despite strong economic recovery of around 9.7 percent anticipated this year, Serame warned that risks and uncertainties remain, given an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases and related mortality experienced in the last few months in a number of countries. “Although, the number of new cases recorded on a daily basis has been declining steadily in recent weeks, there is still a risk for the fourth wave towards the end of the year. It is therefore, important that we continue to comply with all the health protocols as advised by the experts leading the fight against the disease, and also increase our uptake of the available vaccines,” cautioned Serame. Meanwhile, government developed Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan (ERTP), to complement short-term economic relief, as uncertainty and severity surrounding impacts of COVID-19 on the economy continue to unravel.