Category: Sunday Standard

Former President Mokgweetsi Masisi probably saw the storm coming and forged a diamond-hard armor by opening a multi-billion-dollar trade lifeline to Dubai. President Duma Boko recognised its geopolitical power, and upgraded it into an institutionalized, capital flush weapon of economic defence.

In a rare display of political continuity, the two leaders have alchemized Botswana’s once-mocked diamond beneficiation into an unassailable geopolitical fortress.

What global skeptics and cynical sector analysts once derided as a slow-motion nationalistic failure has suddenly transformed into Botswana’s most lethal, world-class strategic fortress.

Today, as the tectonic plates of the global economy fracture, Botswana’s critics are being forced to swallow their words. What was once dismissed as a clunky, domestic political project has suddenly become a masterclass in national resilience.

The validation comes at a moment of extreme international peril. The highly synchronized global diamond highway connecting Botswana mines with India’s industrial engine is barreling straight into a geopolitical storm wall. The United States controls an absolute 55 percent of global finished diamond demand, making American luxury consumers the ultimate arbiter of value for gems mined in Botswana and sliced with laser precision in Surat, India.

But under the Trump administration’s aggressive, unpredictable reciprocal tariff regime, that vital pipeline is choking. Punitive U.S. tariffs on Indian jewelry have swung wildly between 10 and 50 percent, triggering systemic shockwaves across the luxury supply chain.

Worse still is the weaponized clock of the Lindsay Graham Act. This sweeping legislative framework threatens secondary U.S. tariffs of up to 100 percent against any nation continuing to purchase Russian crude oil. With India heavily reliant on Russian energy to fuel its massive economy, a looming presidential determination deadline could spark an all-out economic war, instantly crippling India’s broader industrial core.

For any ordinary resource-dependent nation, a sudden freeze in the factories of its primary buyer would dictate instant, catastrophic fiscal devastation. But Botswana did not listen to the skeptics. The country’s third President, Festus Mogae dug in his heels over economic beneficiation and pulled international diamond aggregation to Gaborone. Masisi and Boko built on Mogae’s achievements to create an armoured tactical shield. By aggressively shifting rough distribution channels toward Dubai, Masisi and Boko have built a parallel, capital-flush infrastructure that insulates the nation’s multi-billion-pula mineral wealth from Western regulatory gridlocks and superpower trade wars.

Rather than sitting back as helpless collateral damage in a Washington-New Delhi trade war, Botswana is primed to weaponise control over its own mineral supply chain to pivot at lightning speed, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) emerging as a vital geopolitical shock absorber.

The Bank of Botswana’s (BoB) September 2026 External Statistics Bulletin exposes an industry aggressively rewiring itself on its terms to outrun this probable Washington-inflicted chaos. In a stunning realignment of regional trade, the UAE has exploded into Botswana’s second-largest export destination, commanding a massive 21.4 percent of outbound goods.

To understand how Botswana secured this financial sanctuary, one must look to the economic architecture laid down by former President Masisi. Long before the current trade war reached a fever pitch, Masisi quietly realized that relying solely on Western-intermediated distribution routes left Botswana dangerously exposed.

He launched an aggressive trade offensive toward the Gulf, famously leveraging events like Expo 2020 Dubai to pitch Botswana’s natural diamond story directly to Middle Eastern capital.

The results were meteoric. Under Masisi’s watch, exports to the UAE skyrocketed from $361 million to an astonishing $2.28 billion. By late 2023, official data from Statistics Botswana verified that the UAE had overtaken traditional hubs to become Botswana’s number one single foreign market, commanding over 32% of all outbound goods.

This massive redirection of wealth was accelerated by early cracks in traditional markets. Leading up to 2023, the geopolitical gridlock surrounding compliance issues and restrictions on Russian rough gems began to clog European pipelines. The Dubai corridor offered global dealers a seamless, parallel financial architecture, pulling the bulk of high-value rough transaction value away from both Antwerp and India.

Masisi effectively built an economic suit of armor for Botswana. By embedding Botswana’s rough supply directly into Dubai’s hyper-liquid bourses, he established a parallel, friction-free clearinghouse where precious stones could be bought, sold, and financed-insulated from Western regulatory overreach and banking gridlocks.

Yet, the core question haunting policymakers in Gaborone remained: Is Botswana witnessing the emergence of a genuine sovereign economic shield against geopolitical shocks, or is it simply migrating its exposure from one international marketplace to another?

The immediate danger lies in the increasingly transactional, scorched-earth relationship between global trade and foreign policy under the Trump presidency. By using reciprocal tariffs as a blunt instrument of economic pressure, Washington has forced global businesses to discard decades of established supply-chain logic, leaving India’s enormous manufacturing base uniquely exposed.

For the diamond trade, the implications are systemic. Surat is the physical engine room of the diamond universe, cutting and polishing 90 percent of the world’s rough diamonds. Its sprawling factories process stones from mining nations like Botswana, employing a massive network of up to one million artisans, traders, and exporters before finished jewelry ever reaches an international retail counter.

When tariffs arbitrarily raise the cost of Indian jewelry entering the American market, the economic consequences do not stop at the U.S. border. They travel backward down the pipeline at terrifying speed, moving thousands of miles from the luxury boutiques of New York straight to Debswana mining towns. American jewelry giants delay orders and demand steep price concessions to protect their margins against fluctuating tariffs. Indian manufacturers, unable to confidently predict the final price their polished products will command, reduce factory production. Indian diamantaires become highly reluctant to buy rough stones at standard prices, forcing a contraction in buying liquidity.

The result is a brutal chain reaction. A tariff imposed on a finished piece of jewelry at a U.S. port of entry immediately deflates the value a miner receives for a rough stone in Gaborone-even if that rough stone has never touched, and will never touch, American soil. For a nation whose public finances, national development plans, and foreign exchange earnings remain heavily exposed to diamonds, this is not a remote academic exercise. It is a clear and present threat to national solvency.

The threat becomes infinitely more complex where trade policy collides with raw energy security. India’s continued consumption of discounted Russian crude oil is a cold, calculated commercial necessity designed to insulate its massive economy from global energy inflation. However, Washington’s single-minded campaign to economically isolate Moscow has turned India’s energy policy into a primary flashpoint.

The Lindsay Graham Act represents the ultimate escalation of this friction, threatening 100 percent secondary tariffs and total exclusion from the U.S. financial system for any foreign entity continuing to facilitate Russian energy revenues. While the precise legal execution of these measures remains subject to intense diplomatic jockeying ahead of Washington’s impending determination deadline, the broader systemic danger is undeniable.

If the dispute over oil escalates into a full-scale trade war, the damage will automatically spill over into India’s manufacturing, export finance, and luxury sectors. Botswana would not need to be named in a single White House executive order or targeted by an American customs directive to feel the full, agonizing pinch. Its exposure is entirely baked into the interconnected supply chain.

When international banks freeze credit lines for Indian manufacturers, or when anxious traders withdraw liquidity from the market during periods of systemic uncertainty, Botswana’s national revenue drops.

Botswana is caught in a titanic contest between two economic superpowers, neither of which needs to look at a map of Africa to deal a devastating blow to Botswana’s economy.

This is precisely why Botswana’s celebrated beneficiation and aggregation strategy has ceased to be an idealistic socio-economic program and has become a hardcore geopolitical defense mechanism.

For decades, Botswana fought a quiet war against the traditional mining model of raw resource extraction. By leveraging its immense mineral wealth, the government successfully forced the structural relocation of De Beers’ multi-billion-pula international sorting, valuing, and aggregation sales from London straight to Gaborone.

At the time, Western observers mocked the move. They warned that forcing global diamond buyers to fly to southern Africa would compromise logistical networks and inject friction into a centuries-old market architecture.

Today, that domestic infrastructure operates as an economic fortress. Because Botswana wrestled control of its own supply chain away from European capitals, it has achieved an unprecedented level of supply immunity. Botswana is no longer just a mining pit; it is the physical clearinghouse for the world’s premier gem-quality stones. When the pipeline to India chokes due to tariffs or energy sanctions, Botswana is not forced to accept whatever fire-sale prices Western-intermediated buyers dictate. By holding the physical custody of international diamond aggregation on its own soil, the state retains the raw leverage required to deliberately pace the flow of rough diamonds onto the global market. Localized cutting and polishing factories-once dismissed as uncompetitive with Surat-now offer a protected, state-sanctioned sanctuary where high-value stones can be processed domestically. This allows Botswana to bypass unstable foreign midstream operations entirely when international gridlock intensifies.

If Mokgweetsi Masisi built the defensive armor, current President Advocate Duma Boko has aggressively weaponized it, shifting Botswana from passive trading to offensive macroeconomic statecraft

Boko realized that holding a dominant market share in Dubai was useless without binding institutional structures. In July 2026, Boko’s administration shattered the traditional midstream paradigm by engineering a landmark agreement between the Botswana Stock Exchange Group and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) This formed Africa’s first multi-commodity ‘sister-hub’ trading corridor.

By anchoring the newly established Botswana Mercantile Exchange (BMX) directly into Dubai’s global ecosystem, Boko eliminated the need for intermediaries altogether. The Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) can now hold coordinated, dual-hosted tenders simultaneously in Gaborone and Dubai. If Washington-inflicted chaos chokes the Indian pipeline, Boko can seamlessly route Botswana’s mineral wealth through a state-sanctioned, institutionalized Gulf bypass corridor.

Furthermore, Boko has taken this relationship to an unprecedented geopolitical level by hunting for petrodollar acquisition capital. Facing a global diamond downturn, Boko has bypassed traditional Western banks, flying directly to the UAE and Oman to orchestrate a massive sovereign wealth consortium.

His objective is staggeringly ambitious: back Botswana with Middle Eastern sovereign liquidity to acquire a decisive, controlling stake in the 138-year-old diamond giant, De Beers. By enticing Gulf monarchs to become co-owners of Botswana’s mineral future, Boko has ensured that any future attempt by Washington to disrupt the diamond highway will directly clash with the financial balances of the UAE and Oman.

Ultimately, Botswana’s bold economic trajectory has delivered a definitive lesson to the global commodities market, that in an era of weaponized trade networks, raw resource ownership without structural supply-chain control is nothing but a trap.

Had Botswana remained a simple country of extraction, content to watch its raw stones fly off to London and Antwerp for valuation, it would currently be completely defenseless against the collateral damage of the Washington-New Delhi trade war.

Instead, through a rare display of political continuity, Botswana created an unassailable fortress. Former President Masisi saw the storm coming and forged the initial armor by opening up the multi-billion-dollar trade pipelines to Dubai. President Boko inherited that pipeline, recognized its raw geopolitical power, and upgraded it into an institutionalized, capital-flush weapon of economic defense.

As global economic empires clash, Botswana stands vindicated-not as a passive bystander caught in the crossfire, but as an active, armored player holding the master key to its own most valuable resource.

For decades, the global diamond industry followed a predictable, euro-centric script. A stone mined in Botswana would almost inevitably find its way onto a flight to Antwerp, Belgium. There, in the tightly guarded Diamond Quarter, European merchants would trade it, and Flemish artisans would cut it. It was a familiar African story where you export the raw wealth, import the expensive finished product.

But the economic currents of 2026 reveal that Botswana has successfully rewritten this narrative.

According to the Bank of Botswana’s (BoB) External Statistics Bulletin for September 2026, a quiet revolution has culminated in a dramatic statistical milestone, India has officially asserted itself as the leading destination for Botswana’s exports, commanding a staggering 32 percent of all outbound goods. Simultaneously, Botswana’s exports to India nearly doubled in a dizzying leap, soaring by 98.8 percent from P1.6 billion to P3.1 billion. Conversely, Belgium’s intake of Botswana’s mineral wealth plummeted by 41.8 percent, dropping to P1.4 billion.

For Botswana, this seismic shift is not just about changing the address on a shipping manifestation. It represents the maturation of its own domestic economic strategy.

For decades, Botswana has fought against the ‘resource curse’ by aggressively pursuing beneficiation-the deliberate policy of ensuring that a portion of the sorting, valuing, and processing of diamonds happens domestically, rather than exporting raw wealth to Western capitals.

The dramatic surge in trade with India is the crowning achievement of this policy. By cutting out the European middleman and dealing directly with India, Botswana secures a more resilient, high-volume partner for its state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC). Furthermore, as Indian diamond giants establish cutting and polishing operations directly within Gaborone to stay close to the source, local Batswana youth are gaining access to high-tech manufacturing skills, transforming Gaborone from a mere mining administration center into a genuine regional financial and diamond hub.

The foundation for this transformation was laid by Botswana’s third president Festus Mogae over a decade ago when Botswana successfully forced the relocation of De Beers’ multi-billion-dollar sorting and international aggregation sales from London to Gaborone. It was a high-stakes gamble that fundamentally shifted the diamond world’s center of gravity.

Today, that infrastructure has turned Gaborone into a global nexus. Diamonds mined in Canada, Namibia, and South Africa are routinely flown in to Botswana to be mixed, matched, and categorized into commercial sales blends alongside local stones.

The Bank of Botswana’s 2026 data beautifully reflects this unique, multi-directional position. While Botswana exports billions in rough stones to India, it also imports 2.8 percent of its total merchandise from India. This figure is heavily composed of specific rough diamonds sent back to Gaborone for local aggregation and specialized processing. Botswana is no longer just a hole in the ground from which wealth is extracted; it is an active, vital processor of global luxury components.

By managing the aggregation process on African soil, Botswana has seized control of its supply chain. When global geopolitical shocks-such as the 2024-2026 G7 sanctions on Russian diamonds-created massive regulatory bottlenecks and multi-week customs delays in Antwerp, Botswana’s direct pipeline to India remained unhindered. Gaborone had the institutional autonomy to route its aggregated stones directly to where they could be processed most efficiently.

The natural partner for Botswana’s sovereign aspirations is Surat, a manufacturing powerhouse in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Surat has achieved a near-monopoly on the midstream diamond industry, cutting and polishing 90 percent of the world’s rough diamonds.

Historically, Antwerp retained the largest, most valuable diamonds because its high-wage master artisans possessed unrivaled expertise, while Surat handled lower-quality stones. However, Indian diamantaires heavily invested in computerized planning software, automated laser-cutting systems, and algorithmic mapping technology, completely erasing the skill gap. Surat achieved this technological parity while maintaining a cutting-and-polishing cost that remains roughly one-tenth of Antwerp’s.

As Antwerp’s workforce shrank to fewer than 1,000 artisans due to high overheads, Surat’s workforce swelled to nearly one million specialized workers. For Botswana’s beneficiation strategy to work, it required an industrial engine capable of processing immense volume with flawless precision. The Gaborone-Surat axis provided exactly that.

Crucially, the relationship is symbiotic. Indian manufacturing giants cannot survive without a steady, predictable supply of rough stones. By setting up factories directly in Gaborone to secure that supply, Indian firms are transferring critical operational knowledge and advanced technological skills to the Botswana local workforce.

While the glittering rise of the India axis highlights Botswana’s macro-economic strategy, the country’s broader trade sheets show an economy maturing across multiple sectors. The central bank’s report reveals that Botswana is successfully balancing its global diamond ambitions with targeted regional trade. South Africa remains Botswana’s undisputed primary partner for imports, supplying 47.5 percent of all incoming merchandise-predominantly food, beverages, and tobacco. However, Botswana’s exports to South Africa also grew by 18.1 percent to P1.7 billion, driven notably by machinery and electrical equipment. This indicates that Botswana’s domestic manufacturing capacity is diversifying far beyond minerals.

Exports to China climbed 18.3 percent to P1.5 billion, anchored heavily by copper. As the global transition toward electric vehicles and renewable infrastructure intensifies, Botswana is leveraging its copper reserves to establish a secondary economic pillar with the world’s leading industrial manufacturer.

Collectively, India, the UAE (21.3 percent), South Africa, China, and Belgium accounted for 79.2 percent of Botswana’s total merchandise exports. This concentration remains stable, but the internal distribution shows a clear migration of wealth away from Europe toward agile, developing economies.

The ultimate ambition of India’s diamond sector is encapsulated by the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB), the world’s largest office complex, built to consolidate trading, sorting, and manufacturing under one roof. For policymakers in Gaborone, this ambition does not threaten local growth; it amplifies it.

The less dependent Botswana is on traditional, rigid European trading infrastructure, the more leverage it wields on the international stage. The fact that India now consumes nearly a third of Botswana’s total exports proves that a nation once vulnerable to the whims of foreign cartels is now a dominant player directing its own economic destiny.

The Bank of Botswana’s observation of a ‘geographical trade diversion’ away from Belgium may or may not be temporary in the eyes of statisticians. But on the ground in Gaborone, the reality is clear. By weaponizing beneficiation, transforming its capital into a global aggregation hub, and forging a direct alliance with the industrial might of India, Botswana has systematically dismantled the colonial blueprint of resource extraction. The Gaborone-Surat axis is the new blueprint for how a resource-rich African nation beats the resource curse.

An explosive power struggle at the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) ended with an extraordinary military intervention this week after outgoing Director General Brigadier Peter Magosi allegedly refused to vacate office following the end of his contract.

Elite Botswana Defence Force (BDF) commandos were deployed to secure the transition to incoming Acting Director General Aobakwe Monamo, turning what should have been a routine change of leadership into a high stakes confrontation over who controls the country’s powerful intelligence machinery.

Highly placed sources within the security cluster say the crisis erupted when Magosi rejected his termination notice, insisting that President Duma Boko as the appointing authority should deliver the instruction for him to leave office.

But with Boko away on an official state visit to China, attempts to reach the President reportedly came to nothing. Magosi is alleged to have repeatedly tried to contact him, only to hit a communication wall.

Efforts to reach Vice President Ndaba Gaolatlhe also allegedly failed, with the country’s second-in-command likewise out of the country and unavailable.

With the country’s top political leadership beyond immediate reach, the standoff threatened to turn into a full-blown institutional crisis at one of Botswana’s most sensitive security agencies.

Sources say Magosi then attempted a dramatic counter-move, unilaterally appointing his close ally and fellow Special Forces veteran Kopano Mochotli, as Acting Director General. The maneuver was swiftly crushed by the Office of the President. Permanent secretary to the President Matshediso Bokole reportedly rejected Mochotli’s appointment and made it clear that government recognised Monamo and not Magosi’s preferred successor, as the lawful head of the directorate. The intervention effectively shut down Magosi’s attempt to shape the succession and reinforced the executive’s authority over the leadership transition.

What followed was an extraordinary security arrangement that saw Monamo meet BDF Commander General Mpho Mophuting and Head of Military Intelligence Bernard Semausu. According to sources, the meeting was aimed at securing protection for the incoming chief amid the increasingly tense leadership standoff. The deployment of elite troops to safeguard the transition raises troubling questions about the level of mistrust within the intelligence establishment and whether the outgoing leadership’s resistance had become a threat to an orderly transfer of power.

Monamo, a civilian attorney rather than a career intelligence operative, is stepping into an agency where his authority could be tested by entrenched loyalties and competing power networks.

The decision to rely on active-duty BDF special forces, rather than the DIS’ own internal protection unit, is particularly striking. It suggests that those managing the transition may have considered an external security presence necessary to guarantee Monamo’s safety and to prevent internal factions from undermining the handover. Sources also point to Magosi’s final months in office, during which he reportedly pushed through internal restructuring and recruited individuals described as having links to the BDF into key DIS positions. Those developments have fueled concerns about the extent to which Magosi may have sought to consolidate influence over the DIS internal machinery before his departure. However, the precise nature of those appointments, the loyalties of the individuals involved and whether they played any role in the standoff remain matters requiring independent verification.

The decision to bring in military personnel rather than rely exclusively on DIS internal security arrangements has consequently raised the specter of a struggle over institutional control rather than a simple disagreement over an employment contract.

Botswana’s banks are increasingly generating revenue from digital transactions and other non-interest activities as pressure on traditional lending income intensifies, according to the Bank of Botswana’s Banking Supervision Annual Report 2025.

Non-interest income rose 33.7 percent in 2025 to P5.2 billion, lifting its contribution to total banking income to 43.8 percent from 34.3 percent a year earlier. The increase was driven mainly by higher fee and commission income associated with greater transaction volumes on digital platforms, alongside increased foreign-exchange activity.

The shift comes as net-interest income, traditionally the core earnings engine for banks, moved in the opposite direction. Net-interest income fell 10.4 percent to P6.7 billion, reducing its share of total income to 56.2 percent from 65.7 percent.

The changing income mix points to a banking industry becoming less dependent on interest spreads and more reliant on payments, transactions and other fee-generating services.

Digitalisation is also reshaping the wider payments landscape. The number of electronic payment and money-transfer providers fell to 22 from 24 during the year, while their combined agent network exceeded 2,500. The central bank is also pursuing further m

For banks, the economics of digital banking extend beyond convenience. Higher transaction volumes create opportunities to monetise everyday payments and financial activity, potentially providing an additional income stream when lending margins are under pressure.

The trend is already visible in the sector’s profitability figures. Commercial-bank after-tax profit fell 10.1 percent to P3.7 billion in 2025, despite total income increasing 4.7 percent. The growing contribution of non-interest income therefore represents more than a technology story: it is becoming part of how Botswana’s banks are adapting their revenue models.

Botswana’s newly opened route for Ngamiland beef to Angola faces fresh uncertainty after Namibia detected foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the Kharas region, raising concerns over livestock and meat-product controls along the transit corridor.

Namibian authorities confirmed 10 cattle tested positive following routine surveillance in the Karasburg State Veterinary District. The outbreak is significant because it was detected within Namibia’s WOAH-recognised FMD-free zone.

The development comes weeks after Botswana announced an agreement allowing beef produced in Ngamiland, including meat processed in Maun, to transit through Namibia to Angola.

The agreement was seen as an important opportunity for farmers and the Botswana Meat Commission’s Maun abattoir, which has struggled with market access because of FMD-related restrictions.

Ngamiland has historically faced difficulties accessing lucrative export markets, forcing producers to seek alternative destinations. The Angola corridor could provide an important regional outlet while strengthening the commercial case for cattle production and abattoir operations in Maun.

Namibia, however, maintains stringent animal-health controls, supported by zoning and veterinary measures designed to protect its livestock industry and international market access. The new outbreak could therefore result in additional movement restrictions as authorities seek to contain the disease.

For Botswana exporters, the critical issue will be whether Namibia’s measures affect processed beef transiting through the country to Angola, or are confined to specific livestock, products, zones and routes.

Any additional veterinary requirements could increase compliance costs or delay consignments, potentially undermining the commercial benefits of the newly established corridor.

The episode highlights the fragility of regional beef supply chains as the success of Botswana’s Angola export strategy will depend not only on securing markets, but also on maintaining animal-health conditions across every country through which the beef must move.

I recognise that the Government’s main focus, naturally, is on the De Beers deal in the wake of Anglo American’s move to dispose of its diamond business. It is not difficult to understand why; De Beers has carried Botswana to where it is now, sixty years since Independence. So it is not surprising that Anglo’s search for a buyer of De Beers would attract keen interest from the Government of Botswana.

But my purpose is not to dwell on the De Beers sale. The bigger point, though, is to urge policymakers, as they pursue the De Beers deal in whatever form, not to lose sight of other sectors of the economy, especially the informal sector. Due to the dearth of formal job opportunities, the informal sector has become a source of livelihoods for thousands of people nowadays. That said, it is a sector characterised by low returns or yields, long hours and low productivity. It is also a sector in which the majority of players have few skills. It is therefore important to pay attention to the sector to upgrade it and lift more people out of poverty.

It is also true that our traditional sectors, such as mining and manufacturing, are not going to help lift as many people out of poverty. So the sooner we recognise that the mining, manufacturing, and even commercial agriculture sectors are not going to absorb the large armies of unemployed youth who roam the streets, the better. This therefore calls upon us to help the informal sector improve productivity in the services it already offers, where it is.

Subsistence agriculture too is notoriously bedevilled by low productivity due to poor absorption of technology and lack of mechanisation.

Several considerations need to be taken into account. In dealing with the informal sector, we need to be diligent. We should approach them with light-touch regulation. We should not burden them with high minimum wages, which, as employers in their own right, they cannot afford. It makes sense to exempt them from some of the onerous provisions of our employment code. The law that commenced at the beginning of this month, for instance, extends its coverage to all sectors of the economy, including the informal sector. Persisting with this would be an unnecessary blunder. It also makes no sense to extend the burden to the informal sector when it is obvious that many of them will not comply with the law’s provisions. Why turn them into unwitting violators of the law?

One District Council in the greater Gaborone area is reportedly engaged in running battles with street vendors because their activities contravene the Public Health Act. This shows how difficult enforcement already is. However, food handlers must abide by existing laws to mitigate outbreaks of disease and other public safety concerns. While it is important to enforce this, it also helps to be smart and provide appropriate infrastructure for vendors at a fee, because another problem with our public policy is trying to provide services for free, which then leads to sustainability issues.

So it is important that, going forward, services be provided at their full cost to balance the interests of consumers with the ambitions of the informal sector.

The Bank of Botswana will seek P3.1 billion from domestic investors on September 24, taking government securities financing past the halfway mark for the 2026/27 financial year, although Treasury bill issuance has already reached its annual target while bond sales remain behind schedule.

The central bank will offer P1 billion in three-month bills, P1.5 billion in six-month bills and P600 million in reopened bonds maturing in 2029, 2043 and 2050. The auction is the sixth of 2026/27 and the first under the expanded P85 billion Note Programme.

Government plans to raise P12 billion through securities this financial year, comprising P2 billion in net Treasury bills, P4 billion in short-dated bonds and P6 billion in longer-dated and inflation-linked bonds.

Five auctions between April and August raised P18.4 billion gross. After accounting for P13.4 billion in maturing Treasury bills, net securities financing stood at about P5 billion, equivalent to 42 percent of the annual target.

Treasury bills accounted for P15.4 billion of gross issuance, with their net increase reaching about P2.02 billion by August, effectively exhausting the annual target.

Bond issuance has been slower, with about P3 billion sold, or 30 percent of the P10 billion annual target. Short-dated bonds contributed only P431 million against a P4 billion target, while longer maturities raised P2.6 billion against P6 billion.

If September’s auction is fully allotted, net securities financing could reach about P6.46 billion, or 54 percent of the annual target.

Funding conditions have nevertheless improved, with three-month Treasury bill yields falling from 10.71 percent in April to 6.34 percent in August, while six-month yields declined from 11.02 percent to 6.50 percent.

A partnership between Botswana Stock Exchange-listed tourism group Chobe Holdings and University of Botswana (UB) Tourism and Hospitality students is putting a practical face to the relationship between the country’s tourism industry, higher education and the communities that underpin the sector.

The partnership saw third-year UB students working with Chobe Game Lodge and residents of Lesoma village to refurbish the community’s Kgotla wall, donating paint and labour to the project on September 16.

For Chobe Holdings, whose tourism operations are embedded in some of Botswana’s most important wildlife destinations, the initiative provides a glimpse into a broader role for tourism companies beyond the traditional business of accommodation, safari operations and visitor experiences.

The Lesoma initiative brings together three elements of the tourism economy – an established tourism business, an institution producing the sector’s future workforce and a community located within Botswana’s tourism landscape.

The project formed part of an educational trip by UB’s Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, designed to expose students to sustainable tourism practice and give them direct interaction with industry stakeholders and communities.

Tourism lecturer Biki Basupi said the department’s annual educational tours are intended to complement classroom learning by exposing students to the realities of tourism development.

‘Engagements like this give students an opportunity to interact with real-world tourism practice away from the classroom,’ Basupi said. ‘They engage with stakeholders and gain firsthand insights into the opportunities and challenges shaping sustainable tourism development in Botswana and the region.’

Chobe Holdings Managing director – Lempheditse ‘MC’ Odumetse said that the UB – Chobe Game Lodge partnership added a practical community dimension to that learning experience.

Students contributed towards the initiative from their own living allowances, a gesture that was recognised by the area Member of Parliament, Simasiku Oscar Mapulanga, who also acknowledged Chobe Game Lodge’s contribution.

‘I sincerely commend the University of Botswana students for sacrificing part of their living allowances for this worthy cause,’ Mapulanga said, describing the initiative as an example of community participation.

Lesoma village chief Kgosi Lesoma B. Lesoma welcomed the contribution, describing September 16 as a day the village would remember because of the gesture by the students and Chobe Game Lodge.

The partnership was not limited to the Kgotla project. During the Chobe educational tour, students also engaged with the Kavango Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area Secretariat, gaining exposure to regional tourism development, conservation, destination branding and cross-border cooperation.

They also donated an infographic frame to the Lesoma Innovation Centre, a community-driven initiative focused on creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable development.

For UB, the significance of the initiative lies in moving tourism education beyond theoretical instruction. Students were able to interact with communities, tourism operators and regional tourism institutions while seeing how tourism intersects with local development.

The broader question for Botswana’s tourism sector is whether such partnerships can become a more systematic bridge between companies, universities and communities, particularly as the industry seeks to increase the economic and social value retained locally.

The Lesoma project offers one example of that model in practice: students applying what they learn, a listed tourism company supporting a community initiative, and a destination community becoming part of the learning process.

‘Our Lesoma Kgotla project stands as a practical example of how education, partnership and community spirit can come together to create meaningful impact while preparing the next generation of tourism and hospitality professionals,’ said Naledi Stacy Jeji, a third-year Tourism and Hospitality student.

As Botswana continues to position tourism as an important contributor to economic diversification, such industry-academic-community partnerships could become an increasingly important part of how the sector develops its skills base, strengthens destination communities and translates tourism activity into broader local value.

Botswana is preparing to overhaul the ownership of state-owned enterprises as tighter public finances and the push for economic diversification expose the cost of a fragmented approach to managing public assets.

Vice President Ndaba Gaolathe said the proposed SOE Ownership Policy would make government a more deliberate shareholder, with clearer performance expectations, stronger governance and closer monitoring of fiscal risks.

The economic significance lies less in creating another layer of oversight than in forcing government to confront why it owns individual enterprises. Under the proposed framework, new SOEs would require a clear economic, strategic or social justification, while existing entities would be reviewed for mandate relevance, performance, fiscal exposure and public value.

That could eventually put poorly performing or strategically marginal enterprises under pressure to restructure, partner with private investors or, where justified, exit state ownership.

The proposal also seeks to separate ownership from day-to-day management. Line ministries would retain strategic responsibility, while a dedicated Oversight Authority would consolidate information on the SOE portfolio and monitor borrowing, guarantees, transfers, operating losses and other potential claims on the public purse.

This distinction matters because fiscal risks from SOEs can emerge well before they appear as direct budget expenditure.

The policy would also require government to identify and fund public-service obligations imposed on commercial SOEs, reducing the risk of enterprises being judged commercially while carrying unfunded social mandates.

For private businesses, competitive neutrality could prove equally important, particularly where state-owned companies compete in commercial markets.

The proposed reforms therefore represent a shift from simply managing SOEs to questioning the economic rationale for state ownership itself. The test will be whether the eventual legislation produces measurable improvements in performance, fiscal discipline and public value rather than another governance framework without stronger commercial accountability.

Botswana’s vultures may be ugly ducklings of the wildlife economy but they are quietly doing business worth more than US$250 million a year across Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to research by economists and conservation specialists affiliated with Leibniz University Hannover, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, BirdLife International and the Foundation for Sustainable Development.

The study, Total Economic Vulture: The Value of Ecosystem Services Provided by Vultures in Southern Africa, puts a price on an animal that rarely makes the tourism brochure cover but apparently has an impressive balance sheet.

The researchers estimate that vultures generate more than US$250 million in annual ecosystem services across the three countries, with the value rising to about US$1.8 billion across SADC.

Much of that value comes from work that would otherwise require somebody, probably at considerable cost, to do the dirty work.

Existence and bequest values account for 54.5 percent of the total, while sanitation and pest control contribute 37 percent. In simple terms, vultures clean up carcasses, help control potential disease risks and keep the ecosystem moving.

Their sentinel role contributes another 4.5 percent, while material uses account for 3 percent. Waste disposal adds 0.8 percent and nature-based tourism 0.2 percent.

The numbers give a different perspective on Botswana’s wildlife economy. While lions attract cameras and elephants attract tourists, vultures provide what could be described as free environmental outsourcing – removing carcasses without sending an invoice.

The researchers estimate that failing to act on vulture conservation could result in welfare losses of almost US$47 million annually, compared with welfare gains of nearly US$30 million from conservation action.

For Botswana, the message is unusually commercial: the bird most people would probably not invite to dinner may already be one of the ecosystem’s most reliable unpaid contractors.