Trading licences requirements relaxed

Keikantse Lesemela | Friday June 20, 2014 12:25

Speaking at the annual general meeting held in Gaborone on Wednesday, BOCCIM president Lekwalo Mosienyane said they remained firm on their mandate of ensuring a conducive business environment.

“We engaged government through the already established public-private dialogue structures. A new licensing regime was implemented and a review of the point based system was carried out resulting in more relaxed pass marks,” he said.

Mosienyane explained that through this strategy, the procedure for payment of annual license fees was simplified and entrepreneurs are now able to pay their annual fees on the due date irrespective of whether the health inspection report is ready or not. “We will not rest until we abolish trade licenses altogether and replace them with a simple registration system especially for tax purposes,” he said.

He said a new form has been developed and gazetted. “I know that there will be some ground resistance by public officers therefore we request you to be vigilant and report any attempts to frustrate the process when you go to the councils to pay your annual fees,” said the BOCCIM president.

Mosienyane added that as part of the Private Sector Development Programme, BOCCIM would be transformed into an apex body, in which it will not have individual companies as members, but will have sector and regional associations as members instead.

BOCCIM chief executive, Maria Machailo-Ellis said the new structure will map all business associations and companies will become members through the associations.