Since its arrival in Botswana, De Beers has sought to do business solely with the Botswana government. And with this, totally ignored its social responsibility (as a corporate citizen of long standing, and a leading beneficiary of Botswana's diamond wealth), to devise proactive policies for the empowerment of citizens in the direct and hands-on running of the industry. Over 40 years of De Beers presence in Botswana has not produced citizen local diamond entrepreneurs at any level of the diamond pipeline.  Whilst in South Africa De Beers has taken a broad based black empowerment group as its partners in diamond mining, and requires its sightholders to partner with black empowerment groups, in Botswana it has tended to prefer partnering with the government infinitively. Regrettable is the fact that there has not been any attempt by the government to encourage De Beers to partner with citizens. But, does it have to take persuasion or coercion to do so? As a self declared good corporate citizen and supporter of African diamond producers value addition initiatives, does De Beers not have a sense of righteousness, and the common sense to know that maintaining the status quo is morally deficient, and that it cannot be  allowed to last forever?

De Beers's point of view is that its partnership with the government enables the latter, to take care of its citizens with its 50% share of profits. As a corporate citizen, it does not necessarily see its 50% share as relevant to citizen empowerment. De Beers perhaps also sees its contribution to citizen training and education through Debswana as good citizen empowerment. In a narrow sense yes, it is. But, looked at from a broader perspective citizen empowerment is not about the numbers of scholarships afforded citizens, but rather about the practical translation of the education and training received into processable and tangible outcomes that affords Botswana's manpower independence. It is about the citizens' ability to practically influence and enable formulation of macro economic and operational policies from the factory assembly line, the processing rooms, and the board room to the legislature and/or executive arms of government. It is about enabling the citizens' power of command to flow through all the production and services points of decision making chains to the final consumer. To put it simpler, qualitative board or government diamond development decisions must, as a rule, have their foundations at the lower levels of the decision making pyramid.  

This requires an organisational culture mindset shift, and therefore the incorporation of personal mindset programmes in the De Beers human resources development strategy, as a citizen brain empowerment initiative. What the government/De Beer's partnership has tended to do (which has tended to work very well for De Beers) is cause government decision making to be effected from top down, when they should be made on the basis of factual and processed technical  information derived from the bottom. In other words the decision making and /or policy formulation relating to the government's interest in De Beers or Debswana, or the development of the industry, should ideally derive its roots from technically equipped citizens on the ground. But this is not happening and has never happened before. Rather the government has tended to place more value on De Beers or other foreign advice, despite a pool of local expertise built over the past 45 years. This is a pool of expertise that the Government/De Beers partnership has since its inception, entrusted De Beers to build.

The rationale for entrusting De Beers with this function was to enable the government, over time, to tap on this initiative for its manpower requirements. That time is long overdue. But, the government still relies on De Beers or other foreign expertise in making decision impacting on the local diamond industry development, with practically no independent local expert power. The latest case in point amongst legions, is the establishment and running of DTC Botswana. What all these boils down to, is the fact that Botswana citizens trained by De Beers have not added value to government diamond policy formulation and industry development decision making as should be the case. Thus, this deliberate disempowering policy and care-less attitude by De Beers and the government respectively, has instilled a mindset of defeat, hopelessness and belief that they (citizen diamond experts) are not capable of contributing to the local diamond industry development. Hence most have resorted to cattle farming and alcoholism. A very sad story indeed.

But, why am I blaming De Beers for all these, when it is in Botswana's interest to do business and maximize profits? Is it De Beers's fault that the Botswana government has these deficiencies? From the care-less point of view, perhaps not. But from the righteous and moral points of view, De Beers has a big portion of the blame to take. As a service provider entrusted by the partnership to produce a local technically equipped pool of expertise, De Beers does not seem concerned about the dormancy of this pool, even to the extent of continuously sourcing skills from Europe and South Africa for the likes of DTC Botswana, whilst sending more of its skilled citizens to the streets. Since the discovery of diamonds in Botswana, many citizens have gone in, through and out of De Beers' operations. Except few who were forced to go in exile to foreign lands, none are involved in diamond entrepreneurial ventures, even under the new diamond dispensation, or occupying strategic positions at DTC Botswana etc. All these, are indications of a deliberately crafted strategy to keep Botswana citizens as far as possible from involvement in the local diamond industry, taking advantage of Batswana's follower mentality and subservient state of being.

De Beers continues its trail of seeking business partnerships with the government, without the slightest concern about citizens entrepreneurial development, and in particular many of its former employees possessing the requisite skills. The latest on its Botswana diamond industry conquering trail is the recent revelation by DTC Botswana (under its management) that Orapa House would soon be transformed into a Diamond Centre, as a joint venture enterprise with the Government, DTC Botswana and the local Sight holders - all foreign companies. De Beers has secured government partnerships at mining, valuing and marketing levels and now want its sight holders also to have a ball. There is no doubt that the Government Diamond Valuators role is next in line in the quest for the total colonization of Botswana's diamond industry - our only God given hope for self sustenance as a nation.

The rationale for partnering with De Beers, I understand, was originally not meant to continue multiplying. Botswana at the time had no citizen private sector base, and no requisite educational and skills base for citizen/ foreign partnership success. It therefore made sense that government took the business partnership role, until citizens were ready to engage in business. This wisdom of Sir Seretse Khama's government worked very well for the time anticipated. Now Botswana has legions of educated and trained experts to partner with De Beers and all foreign companies that come here. But, instead of advancing Sir Seretse Khama's self reliance vision, we have chosen to stagnate, albeit trading the vision for perpetual foreign control and domination. The government seems not to see that perpetual yielding to the De Beers partnership strategy will eventually entangle government to the point of paralysis in sound governing decision making processes. This is how puppet states are created. Smart businesses know that if the echelon of power is entangled, and in this instance the government, then perpetual control is assured. I am quite convinced that had God given Seretse Khama more days that strategy would have long fallen out.

One thing I personally admire and credit De Beers for, is its sense of forward thinking. It plans 20 or more years ahead, whilst we basically work on a trial and error basis. Its long term planning helps it see the political and economic trends far ahead and is therefore able to manipulate potential change factors in its favour well in advance. For example, one has to look at how long it took BDVC to reach a close to full citizen control before sliding back to the 70's era, to start all over again, this time as DTC Botswana. This is not just a coincidence. It was planned. I salute you De Beers!

As sad as the situation is, I am however, comforted by the recent 4 D governance strategy that the newly sworn in President of the Republic of Botswana, Ian Khama unveiled during his inauguration. Amongst them, the quest to facilitate the expansion of the private sector as the engine for economic growth. I am also further comforted by the formation of a cabinet economic committee that will look into the economic strategies for advanced economic growth. With these, I can see a possibility of forward planning and execution more advanced than that surrounding the traditional National Development Plans.  My national service contribution to President Khama's 4 D development strategy: is therefore as thus:

1. It is time that the government of Botswana concentrates on governing and leave business to its citizens. At this stage of our development and political/economic independence, there is no justification for government's continued role as a business entity. In this instance the government should over the next 10 years progressively relinquish 40% and 100% of its shares in Debswana and DTC Botswana respectively, to various citizen companies that represent a cross section of various national interest groups, as a citizen private sector driven initiative.

2. The government should facilitate joint venture partnerships between its partner (De Beers) and citizens on the Orapa House diamond information centre initiative. I believe there are citizens who have expressed interest in this kind of venture. But, due mainly to the traditional partnering of Government/De Beers on diamond initiatives citizens are unable to break through this barrier without the government's assistance.  

3. Government should make it mandatory for all the current and future diamond beneficiation companies to partner with citizens. This should not be difficult as most of them are already involved in this exercise in neighbouring countries with De Beers support.

4. The moratorium imposed on the issuance of diamond licences by the Ministry of Mineral & Energy Resources must, be lifted without delay to allow for citizen entry into the industry. The beneficiation initiative cannot be allowed to continue without citizen involvement. It is foolishness to do so. 

5. The local diamond industry should foster the emergence and entrance of citizen small and medium scale companies in the diamond beneficiation process for obvious economic, political and social reasons, including employment.

6. There is need for an aggressive skills development policy for the diamond industry that addresses citizen deficiencies in running the local industry and to be involved in the broader international diamond industry.

7. President Khama's government should establish an independent fully fledged strategic economic sectors' Scenario Planning Department that will have a dotted line functional reporting to his newly created cabinet economic committee. It will be a department that constantly scans both the internal and external political, economic and social trends that impact on economic development planning and regular decision making. Thus, affording the government an eagle's eye view of what lies beyond the horizon. This department will consist of various economic strategic functional units - minerals, agriculture, and tourism etc, manned by task relevant experts.