Tourism Levy Not For Park

The tourism levy cannot be used to maintain or develop infrastructure in national parks and game reserves, despite ongoing public frustration over their poor condition. This was said by Minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi in response to a parliamentary question recently. Minister Mmolotsi told Parliament that in the 2024/25 financial year, about P19, 334, 200 was collected from the tourism (bed) levy and the money was paid directly into the Tourism Development Fund in line with paragraph 7 of the Public Finance Management (Tourism Development) Fund Order of 2022.

The minister explained that the Fund was strictly for purposes such as tourism development, community beneficiation, research, publicity, service improvement and heritage preservation and not for maintenance of protected areas. He added that infrastructure in national parks and reserves was funded through the ministry’s separate Recurrent and Development budgets. However, he acknowledged that capital expenditure had been very low for the past decade, with only about P20 million spent annually on protected area infrastructure and facilities, an amount he described as inadequate given the scale of investment required.

“Some of the infrastructure, most of which gate houses and staff housing, were constructed some 20 years back, requires urgent maintenance as they have aged,” he said. He cited recent small-scale interventions, including the rethatching of Linyanti and Ihaha entrance gates and the start of new office and staff accommodation developments in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve under the Refurbishment of Wildlife Camps project. “These works will be rolled out in a phased approach across other protected areas,” he added.

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On why infrastructure remained severely dilapidated despite consistent levy collections, Mr Mmolotsi bemoaned delays in project execution and weak institutional capacity. He indicated that the current state of parks and reserves undermined visitors’ experiences, compromised conservation objectives and affected working conditions for staff. The plan is now in its initial stages of implementation,” he said.

Key measures, he said, included the establishment of a Resource Mobilisation Unit to coordinate fundraising and improve access to both government and international grants, decentralisation of protected area budget management and greater involvement of the private sector to speed up infrastructure improvements and leverage its agility. Mr Mmolotsi emphasised that the strategy aimed to diversify funding sources, modernise financial systems and strengthen institutional capacity to ensure more sustainable investment in Botswana’s protected areas. The minister told Parliament that government was committed to addressing infrastructure challenges in the country’s national parks and reserves.

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