BDF budget military expenditure continues to swell :: Mmegi Online

It is now almost a trend that in every budget allocation, the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security (MDJS) is appropriated a huge chunk of the country’s development budget. The bulk of the money is directed towards military hardware and equipment at the expense of infrastructure development and welfare of the Botswana Police Service (BPS), the Department of Prison and Rehabilitation and the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) officers. Staff Writer GOITSEMODIMO KAELO looks at MDJS’s 2017/18 budget estimates

While there are issues of national priority like electricity, water, creation of employment for the youth and crime fighting, which have suffered because more funds have been directed towards acquiring BDF equipment over the years, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Shaw Kgathi once again this week, proposed a huge development budget for the BDF towards acquiring hardware and army equipment while the BPS remains under-resourced.

When presenting his ministerial budget proposal for 2017/18 to Parliament, Kgathi requested P5,006,298,770 for recurrent budget and P2,760,251,046 for development budget. The over P2.7 billion development budget is the third largest share of the country’s development budget. This however, is a decrease from last year’s P3.58 billion estimates.

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