He said at the - Tourism Pitso 2009 - that there are certain foreigners who come into the country to commit serious offences such as money laundering, human trafficking and drug peddling after taking advantage of loopholes in the immigration laws.

Khama was responding to requests from business people who wanted the processing of work permits and residence permits to be speeded up.

“The loopholes allowed a lot of undesirable people to settle in Botswana and we have rounded them up to tell them to leave,” he said. However, he regretted that some overzealous officers have turned down or wrongly targeted genuine businesspeople in the process of weeding out undesirable elements.

Khama said some unscrupulous foreigners buy passports from Batswana students studying abroad for easy access to European countries. This has prompted government to make it difficult and expensive to replace a lost passport if there is no clear explanation on how it got lost.

The President said that Botswana will compete with neighbouring South Africa once the proposed Health Hub takes-off. He said that the Hub aims to bring health specialists into the country and to upgrade medical facilities to offer good services.

As participants posed questions to the top table where Khama sat with several ministers and senior government officials, it emerged that poor Internet connectivity could be costing the economy a lot of money. Other issues of concern were uncollected litter along major highways; police harassment at Makalamabedi checkpoint; poorly maintained public transport; a stalled bridge project in Mababe in Okavango because a technician passed away recently; and donkeys with tied legs and skinny dogs in Maun are an eyesore for tourists.

Khama replied that Internet connectivity problems will soon be a thing of the past as Botswana will be connected to the undersea cable in Namibia and another in East Africa through Kenya. The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is a 9,900km-long optical submarine cable between Durban and Port Sudan. Khama said the cable passing through Namibia will soon be completed.

Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner Thebeyame Tsimako denied reports of police harassment and called on the participants to report such matters to the Commanding Officer in Maun.

Works and Transport Minister, Johnny Swartz said that there is a programme to keep highways tidy but the problem is that people do not want to change their attitude to litering.

Lands Minister Nonofo Molefhi stated that they have frozen the change of land use in villages surrounding urban areas. This is meant to stop people from buying ploughing fields to build private residential estates. He said he is waiting for the report that will guide change of use authorisation.