"Budget not all doom and gloom"

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Friday February 12, 2010 00:00

Botswana Confederation of Commerce Industry and Manufacturing (BOCCIM), in association with Grant Thornton organised a budget review seminar here on Tuesday, in which most of the participants praised government for their efforts.  Grant Thornton Associate Director, Rajesh Narasimhan says that he is optimistic about the budget.

Although most of the participants at the seminar seemed most worried about VAT, tax and no cost of living adjustment, Narasimhan said that the budget had many challenges because of the problems of the past year. He said that the adjustments made to VAT, Tax and others were necessary in these times. He said that it was also necessary to allocate a significant amount to education.

'The idea is to empower the citizens of Botswana,' he said.  Narasimhan also said that the move by the government to remove the two-tier tax system was not a bad move.

'All that the government did was remove the two tier system and replace it with one and this was done with a view to simplify tax. There have been no changes in tax rates and tables,' he added.

He said that even though it is hard to accept that VAT has been increased by two percent, it is not for a bad cause.

'Prices will go up but the money will go towards development and so on and this is how just economies work,' said Narasimhan.  He said that the budget had several positives considering the country and the world were just coming out of a recession. He listed some of the positives of the budget as the projected GDP growth for 2010-2011 estimated at 5% as against 0% in 2009-2010.  He further said that the merging of parastatals was also a good move. Merger of Botswana Post and Botswana Savings Bank has been approved and others,' he stated.Government is keen to transform Botswana from a resource based to a knowledge based economy, he explained.