A bird’s eye view of the 2023 Budget Speech

Fiscal think tank: The Finance Ministry's proposals will be finalised after legislators’ debates
Fiscal think tank: The Finance Ministry's proposals will be finalised after legislators’ debates

Marking the end of National Development Plan (NDP) 11 and the commencement of the Transitional National Development Plan (TNDP), the 2023 Budget Speech comes at a time when the economy is recovering from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 and the instability in Eastern Europe.

Despite anticipated deceleration of global economic growth in 2022 and 2023 by 3.4% and 2.9%, respectively, Botswana strongly rebounded from the adverse effects of the pandemic posting growth of 11.8% in 2021 with growth projected to 6.7% and 4% in 2022 and 2023, correspondingly.

While inflation was significantly above the Bank of Botswana’s target of 3-6% in 2022, mitigating measures such as interest hikes, temporary reduction in VAT rate and zero rating of some food commodities helped to arrest the acceleration of inflation, leaving it at 12.4% in December.

Editor's Comment
BDP primaries leave a lot to be desired

The BDP as a party known to have ample resources has always held its primaries well in time, but this time around that was not the case. The first leg of the primaries was held last weekend, with the final leg being billed for the coming weekend. This time around, the BDP failed to shine in its primary elections. The elections were chaotic; most if not all polling stations didn't open at the specified time of 6am. Loyal BDP members braved the...

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