PPPs have increasingly become popular in Botswana due to the collaboration advantage between government and the private sector and the recognition that there is a benefit in pooling financial resources, skills and expertise to improve the delivery of basic services to all Batswana citizen. At a Sensitisation workshop on PPPs in 2019, conducted by the PPP Unit under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance, the PPP Unit, indicated that there are 16 pipeline PPP projects to fund infrastructure projects in areas such as water, energy, tourism, agriculture, education and health, priority being given to the maintenance of existing infrastructure. This is in alignment with the Botswana National Development Plan.
In light of PPPs becoming popular in Botswana, the Government of Botswana recognised the need to have a defined regulatory and legal statutory legislation governing PPPs. In previous years, PPPs were guided by a policy, the Public-Private Partnership Policy and Implementation Framework, 2009 issued by the Ministry of Finance (Policy).
Last year, 2021 the Government of Botswana repealed the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act (Cap 42:08) which was geared towards public tenders and replaced and re enacted the new Public Procurement Act, 2021 to explicitly make it vivid that the new Public Procurement Act, 2021 shall apply to all procurement activity including PPPs. This is a welcome development in our law as it prescribes institutional frameworks to be established when procuring PPP arrangements and there is no ambiguity regarding whom can be procuring entity and whether a procuring entity can delegate its functions.
Furthermore the new legislation has empowered the Minister of Trade and Industry (the Minister) to prescribe structural arrangement, procedure and processes relating to procurement activity under PPPs. No timeline has been set regarding these highly anticipated impending PPP regulations to be issued by the Minister.
Authored by Tatenda C Dumba
Partner at Minchin & Kelly
tdumba@minchinkelly.bw