Speaking at the BOCCIM northern region dinner dance in Francistown, he said they have developed a comprehensive and reliable strategy for diversification and sustainable growth. “The strategy will identify the existing constraints or obstacles perceived as impending accelerated economic growth and diversification, foreign direct investment flows and enterprises development,” said Ebrahim.
He added that investments can only flow once the business community and BOCCIM have generated the best climate of confidence.
He said that the reservation policy introduced by the government to favour locals resulted in foreign businesses closing down and relocating. This made the unemployment problem worse. He added that this is not unique to Botswana as many countries around the world are facing the same dilemma. But he stressed that Botswana needs foreign investors.
“Ask those who have lost their jobs due to the closure of foreign-owned businesses and the relocation of some of them,” Ebrahim said. He added that BOCCIM supports citizen economic empowerment as it is imperative that citizens have a greater stake in the economic transformation, growth and development of the country. He said that BOCCIM supports broad-based economic empowerment as it gives every Motswana an equal opportunity to fully participate in the economy of Botswana.
“We call it broad-based because we do not want to see the same cattle drinking at the same trough and crowding out others. Neither can we afford to see a single group consisting of the same names and the same recycled faces because experience has shown elsewhere that this type of process has only transferred wealth from one privileged group to another without any or little benefits flowing to the broad population,” Ebrahim explained.
He said that BOCCIM wants the government to award all future developments projects to citizens based on equity participation or joint venture. Ebrahim revealed that BOCCIM has been looking at ways to balance investor confidence with FDI flows with the needs of citizen economic empowerment. It has also been looking at the experiences of successful economies that have the same characteristics as Botswana. He gave the example of Dubai saying that it opened to any type of investor provided that they had citizen equity partner. He said since the introduction of the policy in Dubai, there has been an exceptional and phenomenal growth.
“Just to put things into perspective, the population of Dubai is about 1.2 million, out of which there are about 250,000 citizens and there are close to a million foreigners. Are we ready to follow this path,” Ebrahim asked adding that Botswana should apply lessons learnt from Dubai.
SADC executive secretary, Dr Tomaz Salomao attended the dinner and spoke on foreign investment and development. He said that despite a relatively small market, the SADC region can still reap significant and dynamic gains from regional economic integration, provided supply side constraints are adequately addressed. “Through regional integration, we aim at unlocking all these potential by harnessing the base of resources, harmonising our policies and creating a conducive environment for the private sector to play its catalytic role in the development of our region with minimal level risk,” Salomao said.
He said that economies that have low levels of inflation, positive real rates of interest and a convertible exchange rate have the basic prerequisite for attracting foreign investment. The theme of the night was foreign investment and development.
