UDC gov’t has deteriorated health system-Saleshando
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday November 14, 2025 11:27
In his response to the State of Nation Address (SONA) on Wednesday, he exposed challenges burdening the system.
Amongst these Saleshando noted that health care service providers are short staffed and overburdened, facilities still have a dire shortage of commodities, equipment and supplies, those seeking help are still subjected to long queues and long waiting periods to see specialists, and there is still no culture of accountability.
“While we used to be the world leader on issues of HIV and AIDS, provision of ARVs has proved a difficult task for the new government.
“Batswana are needlessly dying because their government is failing to avail essential drugs and commodities. No one should be dying because they cannot access hypertension, diabetes or ARV drugs,” he said.
When hitting back at President Duma Boko address, Saleshando said citizens have been made to believe that that this would happen under any government, or that the previous administration was to blame.
The Botswana Congress Party leader noted for the country and the human development, paradigm dictates that during difficult times, the government must prioritise and protect health and education.
“Rather than prioritise health and protect the health budget, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government prioritised increasing allowances and specially elected councillors. On high unemployment and stagnant wages, many Batswana are still job searching, year in year out, many have even abandoned their qualifications and are now just simply looking for any form of employment,” he said.
Furthermore, the LOO stated that Batswana are still subjected to under-employment and exploitative labour practices in many sectors of our economy.
While young people are doing internships and volunteering but still have to go back home at the end of that period because no other opportunity opens up.
He continued; “We still have one of the world’s unhealthiest inequalities. Business closures and losses of jobs: The President has neglected to speak about the difficulties faced by two important partners in development, business and labour. Business closures are on the rise, especially in the SMME sector.”
Moreover, he said workers are losing jobs, and wages are stagnating while working people suffer the most from the pains of a regressing economy.
As for rising cost of living, Saleshando said many Batswana who work, earn just enough to survive and not to thrive.
“This is a contributing factor to gender based violence as the economic disimpoverishment of one partner has a lot of potential to lead to financial, emotional and even physical abuse.
“There is a new term going around ShrinkFlation – everyday prices of commodities are increasing, the quantity of products is shrinking, yet people’s incomes are still the same and some reduced,” he revealed.
Meanwhile, on fiscal discipline, he said government that claims to have inherited empty coffers, some of the financial decisions that have been made are questionable.
“If the coffers are indeed empty, and your first move is not improving the health sector but rather increasing government’s payroll that is deeply concerning,” he said.
“There is too little money circulating in the economy. Citizens can feel and see it. It is now official. Commercial banks do not have enough money to lend to borrowers. To align demand credit with six supply, the central bank has recently raised the Monetary Rate (MoPR) by 160 (1.6 percentage points) from 1.9 percent to 3.5 percent. Curiously, Bank of Botswana had ordered commercial banks not to raise their prime lending rates, which will keep demand for loanable funds artificially high relative to supply.”
He said the liquidity squeeze is bad for the economy because the sufficient supply of money is imperative for the efficient function of capital markets.
In the same breadth, he said the devaluation of the pula has crippled businesses that rely on imported goods and raw materials.
“With Botswana producing so little domestically, importers face soaring costs that are eroding profit margins, raising consumer prices, and threatening jobs,” he said.
The leader of the opposition said erosion of public trust is increasing even with a change of government because Batswana are not seeing action being taken against culprits of corruption and government assets being recovered.
On Education sector, he said it is ailing with teachers are still overwhelmed, working with limited capacity and not even given job security as they keep being retained as temporary employees which limits their livelihoods.
He also lambasted government for confusing priorities, adding that the current government continues to add so much confusion interms of their priorities, lack of direction, lack of transparency and inconsistency.
“A SONA speech of almost four hours has failed to spell out the priorities around which the nation can rally for the coming 12 months. Corrupt land administration, this is one of the areas that in the last 12 months has been neglected. One might even think we do not have a Ministry of Land and Agriculture. There is no political will to reform land administration. This is disappointing for such an important resource, the second most important resource after our human resource,” he said.
He said the UDC government has weakened agricultural sector, and yet they want to diversify the economy but there seems to be no political will to revive the agricultural sector.
“If anything, farmers have had a very frustrating 12 months. The increased harvest of the past ploughing season was not as a result of the present government as is sevem tacitly suggested by the latest SONA,” he said.