The huge government investments have not reconfigured the distribution pattern of our resources. The BDP government has failed to bend arch such that these investments benefit Batswana. The party's inability to accept failure and take responsibility for the current  situation will bring more misery to our people.

At the Botswana National Front (BNF) we believe that the government's efforts to diversify the economy and citizen economic empowerment need to be guided by a binding and enforceable piece of legislation that ensures citizen participation on mainstream economic activities.

Despite progress in infrastructural development since the establishment of an independent State, and the inherent benefits of diamond discovery, the Botswana economy is very imbalanced when it comes to ownership and management of productive assets. A vast majority of citizens are excluded from major means of production.

The government as a custodian of national resources held in trust for the citizens has to ensure at all costs that citizens and citizen owned companies  participate in mainstream economic activities. Citizen empowerment needs and requires legislative impetus. The government has a role to play in directing the economic path. Citizen economic empowerment is such an important matter to be left to the whims of Big business. 

The biggest challenge facing the country is economic diversification. It is our humble opinion that this has to be citizen driven. For citizens to make a significant and meaningful contribution to economic diversification they should be empowered and protected by the Law. The most important element of citizen participation in economic diversification is genuine, real and non-cosmetic empowerment.

This can be in various forms and sector specific. We will suggest and limit our discussion to citizen economic empowerment and participation in the Construction Industry. Big construction companies repatriate their profits while with the citizen contractors the profits are kept locally and therefore can be used to diversify the economy. The multiplier effect of government investment will therefore be fully leveraged. It requires a government, which is fully committed to the nation's interests, like the one that the BNF promises to effect this.

The starting point for citizen empowerment is the establishment of a Law to promote citizen owned construction companies and Built environment private practices. The Law/Charter will help government in shaping citizen involvement as it will be legally binding on all enterprises operating in the construction sector.

In producing the Charter there has to be a holistic approach and thinking so that mandates and requirement of Built Environment institutions such as Botswana Institute of Engineers, Institute of Botswana Quantity Surveyors, Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board, Construction Industry Trust Fund and other industry related bodies are incorporated into the Charter. The Built Environment Charter has to address issues such as procurement, employment equity, skills development, skills transfer and mentoring of emerging contractors.

Procurement
The charter should facilitate citizen participation through preferential procurement & framework agreements, where local companies or foreign companies with substantial citizen shareholding are classified as preferred bidders. This can be achieved through the Charter by revamping the tender analysis scorecard to the advantage of citizen owned companies or those foreign companies with a substantial local shareholding.

It is no secret that China construction companies dominate the construction sector. These companies are state owned and can therefore easily out compete other companies as they have the benefit of state subsidies.

There is currently uproar from big contractors in Europe because China Overseas  Engineering Group (a subsidiary of China Railway Group) has won a major civil engineering work linked to the 2012 European Soccer Championships in Poland  by bidding 60 percent less than competitors.

This is unfair competition and uneven playing field. The Built Environment Charter  should guard the commercial interests of local construction companies and Built environment private practices against big foreign owned companies.

We appreciate that the grade at which a company is registered determines the threshold of work it can bid for. This obviously acts against citizen companies, most of which lack the capacity and resources to venture into major projects.

This shortcoming can be addressed in the Charter by ensuring that the tender analysis significantly benefits companies that do mergers & joint ventures with citizen owned companies. It is not like we do not cherish the principle of giving the client value for money as this means getting the best product at the lowest price possible. However we do not think this has to happen at the expense of citizen participation. This is why preferential procurement is essential.
 
Employment Equity
The charter should dictate employment quotas, which benefit citizens. The government is spending lots of money taking students to the best universities around the world. There is, therefore, no reason why foreign construction companies should import skilled labour. Chinese companies should not import engineers from China when there is enough capacity in the country. Employment equity can also be used to advance women empowerment in the construction sector.

Skills Development and
Skills Transfer
The Charter should make skills development and skills transfer mandatory.
This has to be practically implemented and statistically quantifiable. This can be made practical by ensuring that it is mandatory for big companies to ensure that there is a structured training programme in place for unskilled labour to acquire new skills. At the end of the construction process especially where local unskilled labour has been used, it is essential that there should be some  potential for those people to have an idea of what construction is about.
 
Mentoring of emerging Contractors
It is imperative that capacity building and citizen economic empowerment in the construction sector takes place at a rapid pace. This will be aided by the Charter as there will be strategies that will be implemented to create sustainable construction companies from a low point, within a reasonable time. For this to bear fruits, there has to be an integrated small/emerging contractor development strategy that can enable measurement of progress and results.

Again in establishing mentorship strategies it is essential to do it holistically by involving emerging contractors, mentors, training providers e.g. Technical Colleges, CITF, Training Authorities e.g. BOTA, and Financial Institutions to assist with financial management.

Established construction companies most of which are foreign based should be compelled to take emerging contractors on board through subcontracting a reasonable amount of the construction work at fair rates. This will assist locally owned companies to venture into major projects they could not otherwise have been able to do.

We honestly believe that citizen participation and empowerment in construction is only possible through an Act of parliament that will protect citizen commercial interests.
This will ensure that those foreign contractors that do not help in empowering Batswana through the resources that they get from their government can be made to face the music.