Masisi’s rainy day April Fools’ promise
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday April 4, 2022 07:45
“One of my top priorities as the President of this country will be to address the problem of unemployment, especially amongst the young people who constitute the majority of our population,” the former teacher from Moshupa said. His words were echoed all over during the swearing-in ceremony. His promise was a thrill of pleasure to the ears as many witnessed it over different broadcast platforms. Masisi’s promise to address many people’s unemployment woes was indeed an uplifting and warm breeze. It was the kind of breeze that would make one want to throw open all the windows in the house.
“The young people, who make up 60% of the population of this country, are the future leaders and therefore investing in them is building the bridge to the future,” further promised Masisi as he aimed to wash away the dust from the past and prepare for a fresh start. But the dust never settled. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two of Masisi’s last four years in power have surely been dampened by the economic tailwinds brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. These tailwinds accompanied by repeated lockdowns and curfews, which lasted for 18 months were anguish for businesses. The State of Emergency (SoE) tried to reduce formal sector retrenchments but when it was finally lifted last year in September it gave companies the freedom to restructure leading to further unemployment.
Speaking of the retrenchments, on Monday the Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development Machana Shamukuni revealed that from April 2020 to February 2022, at least 344 Batswana have lost their jobs through retrenchments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said 43 companies were affected. He said that is not all, as at the moment they have received notifications from 457 companies that intend to retrench because of loss of business during COVID. Shamukuni said they don’t just sit back and accept the unfortunate events but they engage with retrenching companies to mitigate the impact on people who have lost jobs.
“We also offer them solutions on how they can save their businesses and their employees’ jobs. Some of them have since backtracked on retrenching their staff,” he said. He added they hope that as the economy recovers the number of retrenchments will decline.
In his last State of the Nation Address (SONA), Masisi delivered his speech guided by the economy and employment as one of the themes meant to promote a coordinated approach to national development. At the time, it was reported that the youth unemployment rate stood at 35.56% and these are the section of citizens Masisi promised he will take care of when he took over from his predecessor turned nemesis, Ian Khama on that rainy day. These are the same people who are having marginal participation in the country’s economic space.
BOFEPUSU president, Johannes Tshukudu says President Masisi has not done much as far as employment is concerned. He told Mmegi that it is important to note that employment is a serious challenge to most employers and governments in the region (SADC), the African continent and globally. Tshukudu said Masisi’s government has done nothing to support the private sector as another strategy to create employment.
“The long talked about Leather Works Company is failing to get off the ground.
"This is a failure on his part against his promises in the 2019 election campaign. Corruption has greatly gone up and it is the same resources that in our view could have been used to create employment (take the P58 million Tautona Lodge purchase) how many small scale companies could have been supported out of that money. We heard of the construction of the P1m toilet and all these are clear signs of a failing government,” he highlighted.
Tshukudu added that it is worrying that more than 400 companies are in the process of retrenching employees because 800 employees have already lost their jobs.
“Where is the promise of job creation? COVID can partly be used as an excuse but what practical mitigating plans is the Masisi government putting in place to deal with the effects of COVID-19 in the economy?” he questioned.
Tshukudu added that sustenance of minimum wage against their call for a living wage is another clear point that the BDP government is not prepared to improve the lives of Batswana, particularly workers.
A global report released by the World Inequality Lab in January this year estimated that the richest one percent of people in the country earned more than 20 times the average income of the rest of Batswana in 2021. While this spiral inequality, unemployment remains a big challenge for the Masisi-led regime despite all the positives he outlined in the last SONA.
“The Economy and Employment theme focuses on Agriculture, Tourism, Mining, the Creative Industry and Sport. These economic sectors are facilitated through the improvement of the Doing Business Environment; Development of Strategic Infrastructure; Small and Medium Enterprise Development; Capacity Building, Research and Development; and the attainment of Digital Economy,” he stated during SONA last year.
Masisi said the Industry Support Facility, which is a component of the Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan, has benefitted 252 applicants through financial assistance in the form of interest-free loans. He added that the distribution of the funds across the stated subsectors has supported 4,212 agricultural jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the government, 5,432 companies received funding amounting to P139.7m under the COVID-19 wage subsidy and the subsidy covered salaries and company operations. In addition, the government has outlined that through Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), a total of P11.7 million was paid to freelance guides, freelance chefs and mokoro pollers, and additional jobs were created over nine months. A further P200m from the Tourism Industry Support Fund is said to have been disbursed by the National Development Bank in the form of loans as a result of these interventions. As a result, the government claims to have saved over 1,000 jobs in the industry.
Despite this self-glorification from the government, Tshukudu said that the Masisi government has no targets for employment creation. “This is deliberate so that we cannot take them to task since there are no targets. So generally, the Masisi government has dismally failed to create employment and there is no sign of ever doing so."