|
 In the 23-page document released by the pact presidential candidate, Otsweletse Moupo of the Botswana National Front (BNF) pact acknowledges that the 2004 elections come at a time when the country is burdened with problems of ever increasing poverty, unemployment, growing inequalities between the rich and the poor, corruption and the rising crime rate.
“The richest 20% of the population owns 60% of the national wealth. The middle 40% of the population owns about 30%. The poorest 40% of the population owns only 10% of the national wealth,” Moupo said in his election message. He added that the statistics is a demonstration of the misrule of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). He said the manifesto gives voters facts about the country, which the BDP is hiding from the public. He identified national unity, political representation, good governance, labour relations, political party funding, poverty and unemployment, law and order, education and housing as some of the issues facing the country.
The manifesto says that the BDP continues to denigrate the cultures and languages of various people in Botswana, which creates an atmosphere of ‘ethnic chauvinism’. The pact members promise that their government, if given the mandate to rule, will create a nation with a shared vision of total equality for all Batswana. The pact members pledge to make basic education free and compulsory. The opposition parties accuse the BDP government of practicing a two-tier education system, where the public schools are for the vast majority of people, and private schools are for the privileged few. The BNF and its pact partners Botswana Peoples’ Party (BPP), and Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) promise to make education easily accessible to all those who can benefit from instruction. “Teaching aids, activities for youth and the whole training will be aimed at developing self-reliance, selflessness and abhorrence of greed, and shall aim at promoting a spirit of patriotism,” the manifesto states. It advocates for the abolition of Local Government’s running of primary school education.
The manifesto also criticises the BDP government on health saying even though health facilities have been developed throughout the country, performance in the human resource sector development has not matched the infrastructure development.
“Almost forty years on, our health sector is still dominated by expatriate personnel in the high skills category. Recently we have noted that even bedside nurses are expatriates while local nurses are forced by circumstances to seek greener pastures elsewhere,” the manifesto states. The manifesto says that the current medical system has gained notoriety for poor service delivery with long queues, atrocious hygiene conditions, poor customer service and shortage of drugs.
In this area, the electoral pact if elected into government, promises to establish a radical development strategy to ensure adequate quality and efficiency of health delivery services. The manifesto says that the pact government would ensure that the Primary Health Care system is employed as a strategy for health care delivery in the country.
|
