18 Dec 2024

Legislators across the political floor on Tuesday supported a bill brought by Vice President, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe that sought to amend legislation geared towards improving the virtual assets market.

Appreciating contributions, Mr Gaolathe, who is also the minister of Finance, said that the bill was also a consideration that the banking sector had gone digital.

He said that at the moment, there was a loophole in the current laws as people could operate virtual assets market without any physical office in the country, which made traceability hard in case of criminal offences. Mr Gaolathe said that the amendment came at the right time when government wanted to rebuild the economy.

“If we want to achieve that, such legislations are vital to change the way we have been doing things.  We have also noted legislators’ advice on the need for public education and stakeholders training,” he said and expressed hope that such a law would also create more job openings.

Mr Gaolathe also appreciated officers at the Ministry of Finance, whom he said sacrificed a lot to draft such amendments.

Contributing to the debates earlier, Tlokweng legislator, Mr Phenyo Segokgo indicated that the financial markets sector had the potential to help diversify the economy. He cited countries such as the United Arab Emirates, which he said had few mineral resources, but was flourishing nonetheless partly due to virtual assets markets. Mr Segokgo also called on government to regulate people who offered trainings in forex trading and bitcoin mining to ensure compliance.

Gabane-Mankgodi Member of Parliament, Mr Kagiso Mmusi for his part, advised on the need to ensure that boundaries for each of the stakeholders involved in virtual assets laws, such as the police and the Financial Intelligence Agency were well defined to prevent straddling on each other’s mandate.

Mr Mmusi also requested government to come up with a central Know-Your-Customer (KYC) database where all organs could access it, rather than having people file at individual organisations.

Gaborone North legislator, who is also the Assistant Minister of Communications and Innovation, Mr Shawn Ntlhaile said that as a ministry they were ready to work with that of finance, to help drive the digital markets through innovative ways. He said that the amendment was welcome as Botswana was joining the world in transitioning into the digital markets, and that the bill would bring trust on Botswana by the world.

Tati West legislator and Assistant Minister of Higher Education, Mr Justin Hunyepa said that at the moment, the virtual assets market in Botswana posed a risk to users as it was not that regulated. He said that regulating it would also help increase government revenue.

“Currently people make a lot of money, but do not pay tax because of lack of laws. 

Enacting such laws will also make it easy to prosecute scammers,” he said. ENDS