Fresh bid to privatise Air Botswana
Brian Benza | Tuesday February 14, 2017 18:00
In an Express of Interest (EOI) notice, the Ministry of Transport and Communications said it was inviting companies, consortiums or service providers capable of offering efficient air transport services to meet the needs of Botswana’s business and tourism sectors by operating Air Botswana.
“The Ministry is open to receiving proposals for privatisation forms including ownership, joint ventures, franchising, concessions, partnerships with commercial airline operators or potential investors, with management competency to run viable air transport service on the existing Air Botswana network as well as developing new routes,” reads the notice.
The EOI closes on February 28, 2017. In addition to four domestic routes, Air Botswana currently provides cargo and air passenger services to South African destinations of Cape Town and Johannesburg from Gaborone, Francistown and the tourism hubs of Maun and Kasane.
The carrier operates a fleet of four turbo prop aircraft, three ATR-42-500s and one ATR72-500. Air Botswana has also wet leased a single Bombardier jet aircraft.
While Air Botswana has not been profitable in recent years, it has developed a five-year business plan to address this and has already taken some actions by restructuring, reducing staff number and ceasing operations on its worst perfuming routes.
Reports say Air Botswana recently retrenched close to 200 workers as it streamlines operations ahead of the privatisation.
During the financial year ended March 2016, the airline, which recently discontinued routes to Harare and Lusaka from Gaborone, halved its operating losses to P83 million.
Government says it is in the process of revitalising the civil aviation sector and plans to engage the private sector in the ownership and management of Air Botswana to ensure continued provision of air services in the domestic, regional and international markets by a viable and efficient airline.
With the privatisation, the government is also aiming at weaning itself of the financial commitments to the airline. Previous attempts by Comair, South Africa’s Airlink and Air Mauritius to buy a stake in Air Botswana did not yield results.
Government successfully privatised its first parastatal in 2016 when it sold 49% in Botswana Telecommunications Limited (BTCL).
Plans are also underway to privatise state-owned, National Development Bank (NDB), which is currently commercialising its operations before investors are invited to express interest.
Presenting the 2017 national budget before parliamentarians last week, finance minister Kenneth Matambo said government injected P400 million into NDB in 2016 with P300 million as a loan and P100 million as equity.