Work ethic curtails competitiveness again
Brian Benza | Thursday September 4, 2014 15:14
The global competitiveness report 2014-15 released yesterday shows that Botswana remained unchanged at 74th place out of 144 countries. In Africa, Botswana came out the fourth most competitive economy after Mauritius (39) South Africa (56) and Rwanda (62).
In 2012, Botswana was ranked 79th having climbed one place from 80th in 2011.
“Efforts to address poor work ethic in the national labour force have not borne much fruit yet, as the issue is still considered the most problematic factor for doing business in Botswana.
“On a positive note, however, the intensity of the problem has declined. The percentage of respondents rating poor work ethic as the most problematic factor for doing business declined from 20.7 percent to 18.5 percent,” said Trade and Industry Minister, Dorcas Makgato-Malesu.
The report is produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with the Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC).
Respondents in the study were asked to select five most problematic factors from a list of 15, which included corruption, crime and theft, government instability/coups and tax regulations.
While the country’s ranking was stable, the quality of scores improved from 4.1 last year to 4.2 this year out of a maximum score of seven.
The 2014 report, themed ‘Accelerating a robust recovery to create productive jobs and support inclusive growth’, shows that there has been marked improvement in the labour market efficiency component with the country ranked 36th from 47th last year.
This was mainly due to an improvement in labour employer relations, flexibility of wage determination and the country’s capacity to attract talent, which has been made easier by the adjustments to some of the immigration regulations.
Improvement in mobile broadband subscriptions from 16.6 percent to 74.1 percent resulted in improvement in the technological readiness pillar.
The global competitiveness index is a composite of 12 pillars, which include institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary education, financial market am, labour market among others.
Out of the 12, Botswana improved in four, which include macroeconomic environment, labour market efficiency, market size, and technological readiness. No progress was made in the technological readiness area as well as market efficiency. “Botswana has strong performance in the macroeconomic environment. This is mainly due to a balanced fiscal budget. The report reveals that there is still some relatively more efficient government spending, low levels of corruption and efficient legal framework for settling disputes and challenging regulations in the country,” said the minster.
Areas of major concern are the health, primary and higher education and training sectors, particularly as the country transforms to efficiency from factor driven.
Despite the notable improvements, Botswana is still factor driven as evidenced by the low ranking in categories such as market efficiency, infrastructure, business sophistication and innovation.
Regionally, only three sub-Saharan economies, being Mauritius (39th), South Africa (56th) and Rwanda (62nd) scored in the top half of the rankings.
According to the WEF, the biggest challenges facing the region is in addressing human and physical infrastructure issues that continue to hamper capacity and affect its ability to enter higher value added markets.
“The strained global geopolitical situation, the rise of income inequality, and the potential tightening of the financial conditions could put the still tentative recovery at risk and call for structural reforms to ensure more sustainable and inclusive growth,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.