With many Batswana eager to know who owns what in the country and who lies behind the company boards and directorships, the publication of the beneficial owner database was keenly awaited.
This week, CIPA officials confirmed that ordinary members of the public would have to wait longer to see companies’ beneficial owners, but did not commit to when this would be possible.
The Companies Act of 2022 was amended with new regulations under Section 21 making it mandatory for the identities of beneficial owners of companies to be uploaded on CIPA’s Online Business Registration System (OBRS), the main online platform where all companies operating in the country are required to register.
Acting CIPA Register General Ntesang Sebetso this week said that the delay in publicising the beneficial owners' database has been caused by internal handicaps, particularly system failures.
According to Sebetso, the initial OBRS system enabled CIPA to capture beneficial owners but impeded the public from accessing the information and thus, making the system public will require some time and changes to the system.
“We don’t expect the database to be in on August this year because we are still finalising regulations for the amendments done in 2022,” said Sebetso.
The publication of the registry was set to make Botswana one of the very few countries in the world where such information is available to the public. The public register would have given Batswana a chance to see the invisible hands owning assets in the background of all entities operating within the domestic landscape and in which sectors.
Disclosing such information would have been a key milestone development as information on individual wealth in the country remains a closely guarded affair.
Sebetso further said the project is ongoing despite CIPA having to make a lot of critical changes to their system to accommodate the changes.
“We have always had the ability to capture beneficial owners in our system and we have always worked hand in hand with law enforcement agencies, providing them with the beneficial information when they needed but this time we have to make changes to the system to accommodate public disclosure,” she said.
The move to have beneficial information accessible to the public follows recommendations from the East and Southern African Anti-Money Laundering Group and the Financial Action Task Force.
The recommendations came at a time when Botswana was grappling with the crippling effects of being greylisted, with the country being marked for heightened risks in money laundering and terrorism financing.
