Botswana slips 11 notches in doing business rankings
Thursday, November 02, 2017
The World Bank says doing business is now more difficult in Botswana than last year
The Doing Business report captures several important dimensions of the regulatory environment as it applies to local firms while providing quantitative indicators on regulation. The regulation indicators range from starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures features of the labour market regulation.
Botswana’s fall in rankings comes despite the country making two significant reforms, which made doing business easier in the year, suggesting that other countries could have implemented more and better reforms in the period under review.
It is a clear signal that the government’s purse is empty and that our own behaviour has left veterinary officials fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. We have been here before. During COVID-19, many of us thought we knew better. We ignored simple rules, we carried on as if the danger was someone else’s problem, and the virus took lives and left our economy on its knees. We are still broke from that experience. Yet now, with FMD...