Citizens as bystanders in the economy
Lewanika Timothy | Monday April 22, 2024 06:00
When the chronicle of Botswana as a success story is narrated, about the anchors on diamonds or the country’s resilient leadership, the question will be asked whether citizens played a mammoth role in this success story. Or has the country carved a system where citizens are bystanders in an economy increasingly out of their reach?
The quest for upward social mobility and economic opulence is the longing of every nation. From the epochs of the Roman Empire to the rise of Alexander the Great, the nature of national civilisation lies in the quest to achieve greatness for society and its members.
However, unlike the Romans and the Macedonian followers of King Alexander, Botswana never set out to conquer territories from the rising to the setting of the sun. The country set out to achieve prosperity for its people while maintaining its integrity and culture. It is a society birthed from cultural practices of socialism grafted from a pre-colonial political system led by chiefs and their regiments.
Perhaps it was from this setting that Batswana adopted the bystander mindset as they lifted their eyes to the kgotla for direction on matters about the economics of the land. But even then one can argue that it was individual members of society that tilled the land and toiled all day for the success of the community. It all boils down to how decisions were made on sharing resources and their use at the communal level. Who decided what could happen to grazing lands and water sources? Who was present at the roundtable that decided when the village went to war and with whose resources?
To avoid arguing in circles, the real question is: are Batswana matching government’s efforts to build the nation towards its aspirations of becoming a high-income country? It goes without saying that there has been an influx of initiatives to increase citizen participation in the economy with most of these happening at the opportunity cost of damaging relationships with multinationals and other long-standing economic partners the country has.
But how many jobs have these private sector empowerment initiatives produced? What is the contribution of these initiatives to the economy? The answer is: quite minimal. The uptake of Batswana or rather the buy-in of citizens in national aspirations has been minimal with many investments turning into white elephants at the cost of government losing billions of pula worth in initiatives that do not produce the desired economic outcomes.
One of the areas where government has been keen on empowering citizens has been through protectionist policies in the procurement space. For many years procurement in the country was a cartel game enjoyed by foreigners as they basked in the warmth of large tenders leaving Batswana to scramble for the crumbs that fall from the dinner table of these foreign-owned entities operating in the country.
New policies restrict government-procuring establishments from awarding tenders to foreign-owned entities unless there is a demonstrated lack of skill or capacity amongst the locals.
Talking to Mmegi recently, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) CEO, Tumelo Motsumi, revealed that the entity has made strides in ensuring the implementation of a reservation policy for 100% citizen-owned enterprise.
Motsumi, however, revealed that the authority was saddled with reports about the tendency amongst citizens to front for foreign companies, helping them to bypass the law to the detriment of the same citizens. To think that citizens would betray government efforts to empower them to help financially strong corporations steal from them.
“As a first the Procurement Act provides for reservation of tenders for wholly-owned citizen companies,” Motsumi said. “When citizen-owned companies are able to compete and deliver on projects with full competence, we ensure that such tenders are wholly reserved for able and competent citizen-owned companies. “However we have had numerous reports where citizens front for foreign-owned entities thereby thwarting our efforts.”
This is in no way to exonerate foreign-owned companies from their role in manipulating the law and the desperation of citizens. And government has a leading role to play in curbing extensive market play of foreign-based enterprises in the country with tools such as state intervention and investigation.
For many years these corporations have enjoyed market dominance while offering a pittance to Batswana through minimal corporate social responsibility efforts, a real kick in the teeth to citizens.
The situation is one where the bystander mentality meets entrenched corporate opportunism and short-termism.
Tenders are not the only manifestation of the challenge.
Under the administration of President Mokgweetsi Masisi, government has pledged to engage in an extensive rollout of land allocations to Batswana who have been decrying the slow process in the country. Through the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs, government has pledged to allocate 100,000 plots each year to citizens in an effort to strengthen their economic position as dignified members of society.
But here again, many citizens have engaged in mass selling of land to foreigners, as if there is a mental bug in the brain of citizens to sabotage all efforts the government makes in an attempt to empower them. Land is a core resource of society that lies at the centre of all other factors of production. When people sell their land, they forfeit the primary economic rights they are entitled to.
Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture and Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane, Tumiso Rakgare, previously expressed concern at the level at which his constituents continue to sell land, especially to foreigners.
Mogoditshane is a highly-populated village on the outskirts of Gaborone and a centre for small to medium-sized businesses. The legislator stated that it is very worrisome that after waiting for so many years to be allocated land, people turn around and sell the land once the process is complete.
He said land is an investment that will benefit generations to come. According to Rakgare, as things stand, in no distant future Mogoditshane will be run by foreigners as they would be the ones with vast pieces of land and property.
“We continue to enrich foreigners in our own backyard. “We have sold land to foreigners who are now building and renting out their premises to Batswana. “There are many people of Asian nationality who own chunks of land in Mogoditshane and this is all our doing as the people of Mogoditshane. “Our area will soon be run by foreigners. “If, you are not careful one day you are going to have a foreigner as your MP.”
However, the greatest failure from citizens has been to take up government enterprise investment opportunities and turn them into enterprises that can create many jobs.
Speaking in Parliament last year, Rakgare revealed that between 2019 and 2023, the government had invested in 2,768 youth projects through the Youth Development Fund (YDF) programme, with only a meagre 214 beneficiaries repaying the loans.
The figures meant a staggering 2,534 beneficiaries were defaulters, but the minister defended those youths, saying while some beneficiaries were willing to pay, the high cost of places of operation, a congested market, and lack of mentorship were some of the impediments that prevented them from honouring their contractual agreements.
A recent BIDPA report on the entrepreneurship landscape in Botswana revealed that between 2017 and 2022, CEDA-youth-funded enterprises totalled 5,600 with all of these enterprises yielding a cumulative job return of 7,700.
According to BIDPA, the average job creation rate for CEDA-funded youth enterprises is below two jobs per enterprise, a worryingly low figure for government.
Much of the challenge stems from the fact that government loan or grant beneficiaries tend to scramble to one sector and quickly overpopulate it, leading to low returns and employment. For instance of the 5,606 CEDA-funded youth projects, 3,789 were in the services industry which has over the years proved to be a low job creation industry, unlike manufacturing and agriculture.
Researchers also say that the lack of success emanates from failure to comply with loan offer conditions by promoters, with promoters at times, conniving with suppliers to divert business funds to other uses.
What we learn from history is that national aspirations rise or fall at the strength of the buy-in of citizens.
Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality would not have amounted to anything without the critical buy-in of the black community.
There is, therefore, a need for citizens to pledge unyielding support, through blood and sweat to ensure that national aspirations turn into reality.