05 Mar 2025

Ministry of Finance seeks to strengthen its role in economic policy formulation and sound management of public finances in order to achieve macroeconomic and fiscal sustainability in the country, Vice President Mr Ndaba Gaolathe has said.

The current acting President, Mr Gaolathe made the remarks in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, while presenting the ministry’s budget proposals to the National Assembly Committee of Supply at the Parliament Chamber in Gaborone yesterday.

Parliament approved the P3.9 billion recurrent and development ministry budget proposed by the minister, after he made a motivated resolve of his ministry to work towards “reigniting confidence and striving for even greater heights, transcending our current challenges.”

He said a major focus was to strengthen oversight institutions such as the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, revamping the procurement model, adopting a multi-faceted approach to audits and introducing comprehensive Code of Ethics and Conduct to guide financial governance, Mr Gaolathe said.

He added that to improve public finance management, an enterprise-risk management initiative was introduced in Botswana to improve efficiency and combat corruption by integrating risk management into planning, budgeting, and expenditure monitoring.

Mr Gaolathe added that to improve revenue collection across ministries, departments and agencies, government was launching Efficiency in Process Initiative.

“This will be supported by our deliberate act to facilitate Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) to unlock revenue collection through reforms, which included digital taxation, electronic value added tax (VAT) invoicing and monitoring, gap estimation model and revenue forecasting model,” he said.

He further confirmed that a National Fund of Funds would be established to improve existing funding mechanisms and guidelines would be formulated in the 2025/26 financial year, in order guide high impact investment, strategic resource allocation, prioritising key sectors, Mr Gaolathe said.

Additionally, a Sovereign Wealth Fund would be established in the 2025/2026 financial year, “to transform resource wealth into financial assets by investing in diverse domestic and international industries and serve as a financial buffer against crises and secure wealth for future generations,” he revealed.

Mr Gaolathe proposed approximately P3.9 billion budget for the ministry, a five per cent increase from the previous financial year, included just over P3 billion recurrent budget and roughly P864 million for development expenditure.
The proposed ministry development budget will cover statistical surveys and studies, consultancies, infrastructure and state owned enterprises financing, Mr Gaolathe said.

Covered under the recurrent budget included funding for operational duties of the ministry headquarters, institutions among them Office of the Accountant General, Statistics Botswana, Public Procurement and Regulatory Authority, Botswana Institute of Chartered Accountants and Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA).

Mr Gaolathe said for 2025/2026 financial year, BURS revenue target was set to P60.48 billion and BURS was authorised to retain two per cent of their revenue target to fund their recurrent budget and one per cent to support their development budget. ENDS