Projects earmarked for North West to boost tourism
Boniface Keakabetse | Wednesday February 10, 2016 15:20
University of Botswana economist, Jonah Tlhalefang made this observation at a budget review seminar organised by Stanbic Bank and Business Botswana at Maun Lodge. Under the 2016/2017 budget, government had announced it will undertake the Maun Water and Sanitation and Infrastructure Project, construction of the Kazungula Bridge and Kazungula Redevelopment projects, which are expected to inject more life into Botswana’s wildlife tourism corridor.
In his budget speech, Finance Minister, Kenneth Matambo said government will continue to create an enabling environment for tourism businesses including encouraging joint partnerships between individuals, citizen companies and non-citizens.
The Kazungula projects are part of an array of developments meant to turn Chobe into a district of economic hub to stimulate the tourism sector. On the other hand, the Maun Water Supply and Sanitation project aims to connect Kunyere well fields to the Maun water supplies network to solve decade-old water woes. The project, which is estimated to cost more than P900 million, will also upgrade existing water supply network and construct sewerage treatment plants and storage facilities. Currently, a lot of hotels including leading outfits such as Maun Lodge spend a lot of money to pump sewerage to the treatment plant, as they are not connected to sewer line. In his analysis, Tlhalefang said the tourism and construction sectors have the potential to stimulate the economy and create jobs in line with the government’s targets. He said tourism has potential growth rate of 2.96 percent adding that investments in the tourism supporting services such as retail and trading sectors could raise output from the sector and create jobs. Moreover, the construction projects are also expected to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Tlhalefang also touched on the Economic Stimulus Package (ESP), noting that the programme is a holistic action plan for achieving the goals of stimulating economic growth, accelerated employment creation and the promotion of economic diversification. He said, however, the link between the ESP and the budget is not well spelt out. He said while the ESP has good intentions, efforts should be taken to ensure its smooth implementation. Tlhalefang said the implementation of the ESP by the National Strategy Office might prove problematic as this sidelines the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. He further said government must direct most of the spending towards the tourism, construction and tanning and leather sub-sectors for the ESP to have large effects in stimulating the economy.