'The most immediate effect is that part of the SACU revenue sharing formula ,i.e., the excise component, which is based on Botswana's GDP as a share of total SACU GDP, and we will get less revenue next year.'
Most economists and statisticians prefer to believe that they are hardnosed scientists but sometimes when the data shows itself to be inaccurate, then the artistic nature of both economics and statistics becomes more obvious. In September of last year, the value of the final goods and services that Botswana produces in any year, what economists call Gross Domestic Product(GDP),stood at Pula 120.5 billion in 2011. A nation's GDP is an incredibly important number. It is generally seen as a measure of how rich a country is- the bigger its GDP, the richer it and its citizens are meant to be. Of course, this is not always the case; but GDP still remains the single most important measure of a nation's prosperity. Just as significantly it is a figure that every businessman looks at when deciding on whether to invest or not in a particular country and venture. Its growth rate, after taking into account inflation, called the real GDP, remains the single most important statistic for measuring the health of an economy. If your growth of real GDP rates is high i.e. higher than your population growth rate, then your real GDP per capita rises and the country is seen as prospering and its citizens generally reward democratic governments with re-election.
