Gov't, unions deadlocked on per diem talks
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday August 5, 2026 06:00
Late in June, in response to complaints by the hospitality industry, the government instituted new arrangements to the per diem policy, specifically requiring civil servants to use up to P900 of the allowance for accommodation at licensed establishments and to provide receipts.
Later in the month, after pushback from unions, the government suspended the requirement, thus allowing civil servants to use the per diem freely without accounting for it.
Since then, the government has engaged the unions, but says the talks are a consultation. The unions have said the talks are a negotiation, leading to a stalemate declared by both sides on July 29.
“The parties did not reach a consensus,” a statement from government and seven public sector unions reads.
Players in the hospitality industry have complained that civil servants, a key lifeline for many smaller operators in remote areas, were using their buying power to force room rates down, or opting for arrangements such as room-sharing or even sleeping in their vehicles, to manipulate the arrangement.
Government wants the new policy to feature a dedicated limit for accommodation, ensuring optimal impact in the local economy. Estimates indicate that more than 30,000 public servants are travelling locally at any single time, holding the potential to benefit citizen-owned SME businesses and their downstream industries.
“Botswana’s domestic travel policy is increasingly being seen as an economic stimulus for local businesses,” a government official said.
'By requiring public officers to claim up to P900 for accommodation only with receipts from licensed establishments, government spending is directed to guest houses, lodges, hotels, restaurants and other tourism businesses,' said the official. “Combined with the P600 daily meals and incidentals allowance, official travel has the potential to inject millions of pula into local economies.”
The official told The Monitor that the policy supports occupancy, creates demand for local services and strengthens citizen-owned SMEs across the country.
“Whilst implementation has faced resistance from public sector unions over collective bargaining concerns, the policy underscores government’s role in using public expenditure to stimulate domestic tourism and local economic growth,” the official said.
Responding to the debate, the Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) said the per diem system had adversely affected the hospitality sector as public servants on official travel increasingly opt out of formal hotels in favour of other means of accommodation.
“It is our considered view that the ability of our hotels to continue to operate and meet their operating costs – when they have just emerged from long-term effects of the COVID pandemic – has been greatly compromised,” Dichaba Molobe, HATAB’s Policy Advocacy and Membership Manager, told The Monitor in a written response to enquiries.
“We also understand that the objective of the local per diem system was to help small accommodation providers such as guest houses and ‘bed and breakfast’ outfits. “Even on that front, we note that guest houses have not benefited from the new system as expected.”
Molobe said HATAB is calling for an urgent review of the local per diem to “avoid the unintended consequences that it has brought upon the hospitality sector”.
“We propose that such a review be accompanied by an economic impact assessment to arrive at an appropriate policy mix which hurts neither formal hotels nor guest houses,” he said.
Civil servants, who pushed for the removal of the requirement to account for P900 a night and provide receipts, are determined to ensure the per diem remains unencumbered.
The public servants deny that they pressurise hospitality operators to lower their rates and say rather, the guest houses, Bed and Breakfasts and other service providers have generally settled on the rates they charge civil servants.
“They know the amount of the per diem we get, and generally, they are charging P350 to P600 per night everywhere around the country,” one civil servant said. “No one is sleeping in cars or sharing rooms to get spare cash. The industry operators are the ones who, once they see it's civil servants, even offer a discounted flat fee so that they retain that business.
“The ones complaining are the big tourism players who don’t offer rooms for anything less than P900 per night. “Why would I spend that full P900 when I can support a smaller SME with less and remain with change for myself?”
Civil servants are also questioning why the requirement to account does not seem to apply to their seniors in the service.
“They are some receiving up to P40,000 allowance for external travel, and they don’t have a requirement to account for any of that. “Those people actually go and sleep in the cheapest of places so that they pocket the difference,” another officer told The Monitor.
It is unclear when or if talks between the government and the seven unions will resume.