NDP12 eyes P400bn investment
Spira Tlhankane | Wednesday October 1, 2025 06:00
The transformational spending is expected to cover the investment projects and other development expenditure of the central government, local authorities, and State-Owned Entities that are financed wholly or partially by the government.
Funding is expected to come from the government, private sector partners, and others, with authorities warning that projects could be chopped off the list if capital cannot be raised.
A highly placed insider who has seen the draft NDP1,2, which will be considered by Parliament in a special meeting from October 13 to November 7, told this publication that the budget expenditures for five years are estimated at P277 billion for new projects, while ongoing projects will gobble up about P108 billion.
The total NDP budget comes in at close to P380 billion, covering a period of five financial years from 2025-26 until 2029-30, a period that covers the new government’s first term in office.
The new projects include large-scale hemp production, which, according to the source, will be done in Kweneng. This comes after Parliament passed the Cannabis Bill, 2025, last month.
Others include the development of the Botswana Industrial Hemp and Medicinal Cannabis industry proposed in Gaborone and Francistown. The Bill passed in the last sitting legalises and regulates the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes, including industrial hemp. The Bill does not legalise recreational use.
Also among the new projects in the draft NDP12 is the Central Medical Store Transformation Programme. Late last month, President Duma Boko declared a public health emergency, pronouncing that the state-run Central Medical stores (CMS) had failed.
“The NDP 12 also incorporates several projects that came out of the Botswana Economic Transformation Programme,” an insider told Mmegi.
“These projects were sourced from the public over a 12-week period, impact tested, costed, and feasibility tested, so that they are ready to go as soon as legislators pass the Plan. “Some of them have already been placed before investors who have expressed interest in funding them directly.”
BETP projects included in the NDP 12, safflower and moringa processing, battery metals refinery, various creative works’ projects, national digital ID system, various renewable energy projects, and numerous more, sources said.
The upcoming special Parliament session for the NDP 12 comes after Minister for State President, Moeti Mohwasa, tabled the draft NDP 12 on September 22. Earlier this year, the National Planning Commission did a nationwide consultation for the NDP12. The Commission, under Mohwasa’s guidance, toured the country, gathering views on what should be included in the NDP12.
Parliament has already revealed that the draft NDP will include a summary of the planned development expenditure across ministries, the Public Investment Programme (PIP), which is a list of projects planned for the period, and an indicator framework to guide performance monitoring during implementation.
Sources indicated that as part of the reform, the PIP includes the expected government facilitation of all projects that are high-impact and have been identified by the BETP process.
“It aims to ensure that public sector investment is aligned to the True North that has been defined as a high-income Botswana that is digitally-enabled, export-driven and economically diversified where every citizen is employed, empowered and fulfilled,” the source revealed.
It is said that the draft, which was tabled in Parliament this week, includes NDP 12 strategies that are translated into programmes and projects where resources are channeled to identified priority areas. The source also indicated that the commitments and resources are spread over the Plan period, consistent with available funding and capacities.
With some of the activities of the upcoming special meeting, including presentation of the draft plan, the draft reportedly includes the development of the PIP, which will consider Vision 2036 Objectives, SDG goals, Key Results Areas, BTEP priority sectors, and National Spatial Plan themes, among others.
The source said project summaries have been developed for each of the projects contained in the PIP, and that implementation of the projects contained in the PIP is dependent on the availability of funds, as will be guided by the budget envelope.
With the current government’s worrying fiscal status, the source indicated that the government is under pressure to find a robust resource mobilisation as well as a solid financing strategy. Indication is also that other modes of financing other than government, such as Private Public Partnerships, Community Public Partnerships, Donor Funding, Self-Liquidating, amongst others, will be critical to ensure realisation of the implementation of the PIP during NDP 12.
With the draft plan scheduled to undergo detailed consideration by Parliament in the coming weeks, there are various new projects proposed by the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government.
The source clarified that the proposed projects were not part of the TNDP and have been identified and assessed using the three-stage method of appraisal, but are yet to be prepared in detail, through submission of a Project Memorandum and subsequent appraisal by NPC and the Ministry of Finance.
“This also includes all those project proposals that have been appraised through and have been included in the TNDP PIP for implementation in various locations across the country. However, they were not able to be implemented and will be treated as a spill-over with no Project Memorandum (PM) approved as yet,” the source pointed out.