Botswana’s Peggy Serame named Finance Minister of the Year 2024

Botswana’s government has congratulated Peggy Serame for being awarded Finance Minister of the Year for Africa 2024 by The Banker Magazine. The magazine, which is a Financial Times Publication based in London, was first published in January 1926, to provide economic and financial intelligence for the world’s financial sector, over a broad spectrum of issues. According to The Banker, commonly held up as one of Africa’s success stories, economic growth in Botswana — one of just seven upper-middle-income states on the continent — has outpaced that of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole for six of the past eight years. Serame is an economist by profession and Botswana’s first female minister of Finance. She has been awarded, in recognition of her effective stewardship of the economy in a year of turmoil across much of the continent. Serame told the magazine, “To support the growth we have embarked on a wide range of reforms including legislative reforms (such as the Retirement Funds Act, Transfer Duty Act, and the ongoing review of the Public Finance Management Act and holistic review of all taxes) and administrative reforms like the rationalisation of government machinery aimed at improving efficiency in the public sector and reducing duplication of efforts while optimising value for public monies as well as the adoption of new project prioritisation, preparation, and implementation.”