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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
Depression is real; let's take care of our mental health

It is not uncommon in this part of the world for parents to actually punish their children when they show signs of depression associating it with issues of indiscipline, and as a result, the poor child will be lashed or given some kind of punishment. We have had many suicide cases in the country and sadly some of the cases included children and young adults. We need to start looking into issues of mental health with the seriousness it...

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