Dry port facility to operate by March 2013 - Minister

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writer | Thursday February 2, 2012 00:00

Upon its completion, the facility is expected to serve as an alternative gateway for Botswana to and from Europe, America and other overseas destinations. 

The facility is expected to be operational by next year March, Finance and Development Planning Minister Kenneth Matambo said yesterday in his budget speech.

The facility is expected to reduce the costs of trade between Botswana and the rest of the world.

Matambo said the Ministry of Transport and Communications, under which the development of the facility falls has been allocated the second largest portion of the 2012-2013 national development budget allotments.  At P2.10 billion, the ministry was allocated 20.9 percent of the development budget.

Meanwhile, P100 million has been set aside for the e-government programme. At a national e-government strategy conference in Gaborone last year, government revealed that it estimates that implementation of its e-government strategy, which it called a key reform initiative, would cost P506 million over the next five years.

Yesterday, Matambo said that government has also allocated P50 million to upgrade the local telecommunications bandwidth, which will improve Internet speed locally.

He said although Botswana's connection to the eastern coast of Africa through the East African Submarine Cable System has been completed, Internet service is still slow due to low carrying capacity of domestic cable bandwidth.