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Botswana is preparing to join a growing list of African countries that will effectively capture an untapped digital economy within their tax base. The move is a bid by many African nations to grow revenue from a sector that has experienced phenomenal growth over the past several years. In Botswana, the list of companies that are doing business remotely is long. It includes Alibaba, Netflix, Amazon, Meta (trading as Facebook, WhatsApp & Instagram), Google etc, and now the government says all of them will in the future be subjected to pay tax for the businesses carried here. The new development … Continue reading “The Taxman’s net now aims at the digital economy”

The Mediterranean is a cradle — of civilization, of agriculture, of history. But the region, stretching across southern and southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, is also a crucible. Here, different cultures and religions, along with extravagant wealth and material poverty, have intertwined and often collided over the centuries. Today, despite millennia of resilience in the face of threats and tragedy, the region’s future seems uncertain as it faces a torrent of environmental change matched in few other places on the globe. At the forefront of seismic shifts in the region is a… Continue reading “Cradle of transformation: The Mediterranean and climate change”

As the Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Patrice Motsepe left Botswana Football Association (BFA)’s Lekidi headquarters for a meeting with the country’s corporate sector, he should have had his head ringing. While he was in the country for the Forbes under 30 Africa summit, the CAF president had taken the opportunity to also get to appreciate the environment of Botswana football and speak to the business sector on its behalf. Ahead of his engagement however, he made a quick detour to Lekidi where he met with the leaders of Botswana football for a ‘meet and greet.’ If his idea w… Continue reading “Can Motsepe help Botswana football get sponsors?”

The bitter feud between former President Ian Khama and President Mokgweetsi Masisi has touched off a new controversy. The Fraser Institute attributes it to investors losing confidence in the country’s mining investment attractiveness index. In the latest Fraser Institute’s Annual Survey of Mining Companies for 2021, Botswana saw a significant decline as investors expressed increased concerns over the country’s political stability. Botswana lost its ranking as the top African jurisdiction in terms of policy, ranking 31st in 2021, compared with 15th in 2020. Botswana is also no longer the highes… Continue reading “Khama, Masisi feud frustrates investors”

“Maybe it is a dream,” Abdallah Shigongo initially thought to himself whenever the thought of being expelled from a country—Tanzania—he was born and bred crosses his mind. “Maybe it was a misunderstanding.” “But it is painful to even think about it,” the 56-year-old father of nine recounted in an interview in Bugango village, a remote outpost in Isingiro District at the Uganda-Tanzania border. Shigongo was born in Bugango village, Kakunyu Sub-county in Misenyi District on the Tanzanian side to Tanzanian parents. Save for routinely crossing into Uganda as trader, he and his family lived in Tanz… Continue reading “Aliens in their own country”