Board of Investment to spur FDI into Botswana
The Board to be chaired by President Masisi
The Attorney General’s Chambers is drafting an Investor Facilitation Law, which will make provision for the establishment of a Board of Investment.
Botswana Investment and Trade Centre ( BITC) Chief Executive Officer ( CEO) Kelotsositse Olebile revealed that the Board, which will be chaired by President Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi, is aimed at resolving investment bottlenecks.
The Board of Investment, a brainchild of BITC, was approved by cabinet in 2020. In addition to resolving investment bottlenecks, it will also provide strategic direction with regard to Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI).
“In any country that is actively facilitating investment, it is very important for stakeholders to align and get to resolve any prevailing challenges in a timely manner, because of the nature of this thing called an investor. Investors usually have unlimited options as countries offer them opportunities, so it is a highly competitive game,” Olebile said.
In 2016, then BITC CEO, Letsebe Sejoe made shocking revelations before Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and Enterprises, that foreign investors are still finding it hard to pick Botswana as an ultimate destination to do business because of the complications associated with running businesses in the country.
Sejoe said Botswana is entirely opposite to the perceptions it had portrayed to the world about itself. He cited Permits and VISAs as the biggest challenge facing investors.
Sejoe noted that delays in issuing these two documents frustrate inventors who end up going to other countries such as Rwanda, which has built a more conducive environment for investors.
While BITC has relationships with different stakeholders regarding facilitating the ease of doing business for foreign investors in Botswana, such partnerships are not binding and sometimes some institutions just ignore a request because they are not compelled by law to do so.
What the Board of Investment is aimed at is to try and quickly unlock through high- level decision making, some of the various obstacles that block some investors from deploying their resources.
“Upon consulting His Excellency the President, he was very clear that he wants to chair something that is anchored in law. In other words, all the powers and remedies that you can take must be of a legal nature; the law stipulating what ought to be done, in the case of any such situation arising,” Olebile told media recently.
“We are currently engaged in drafting process with the Attorney General of what we call Investor Facilitation Law which will contain relevant provisions of establishing Board of Investment,” he said.
The board will be chaired by President Masisi while two ministers - presumably of Investment, Trade, and Industry and Finance and Economic Development - will also serve on the board.
The BITC chief also revealed that BITC collaborates with other quasi- government entities with complementary mandate such as Botswana Development Corporation ( BDC), Special Economic Zone Authority ( SEA), and SPEDU through a structure called investment Group, under the Ministry of Investment, Trade, and Industry. “This structure gets to meet occasionally to exchange notes on items affecting investment in Botswana and how we can open ourselves to realise more investment.
“It is attended at the highest level with CEOs and Permanent Secretary and we brief all the way up the ladder to Minister of Trade and sometimes President,” he said.
Olebile said in terms of cofacilitating projects with BDC, every time they see an opportunity of a massive transformational project that requires some comfort building in terms of participation by the government they engage BDC, which is a government investment arm.
“That is what some investors want when they are exposing themselves with large sums of money. Investors will want to guarantee themselves through some exposure by government investing so that they know that their interests are safeguarded,” Olebile said.
Olebile said Sidielega Private Hospital and the Citrus project are some ventures that were facilitated by BITC together with BDC.