From Oman with love

Mbongeni Mguni | Monday April 20, 2026 19:16

President Duma Boko was in his trademark emphatic element on Thursday, launching the groundbreaking of the country’s largest renewable energy project which comes with the first utility scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

That the mammoth 500-megawatt project and associated BESS has moved from preliminary discussions in October 2025, to groundbreaking on site in April, is not just breakneck speed of delivery, but a feather in the cap for Boko who has set aside his administration’s second year in office for “execution” and the removal of bottlenecks towards that.

Having flown approximately 25,000 kilometres in about a week, April 6 to April 14, traversing the globe across both the Greenwich and the Equator, Boko was exhausted, but evidently triumphant, presiding over the major economic win, which holds the promise of significant downstream benefits.

“I declare and I decree and I speak life to lifeless situations. “That's what I do and I did. And as I did, I heard the shell blasts of detractors, naysayers and doom watchers. I heard it all. “I remained impervious to the noise and the bluster of these doomsayers. “In an environment where negativity has been elevated into a national pastime, we have to deliver in these circumstances. “It is these circumstances that shape and mould the kinds of leaders that we are and they test our resolve. “It is in these circumstances that we have to deliver,” he said.

Boko’s words hinted at the frustration his administration has faced inheriting an economy with weakened revenue pillars and which has faced sustained blows around each corner. The president came into power with government savings at record lows due to a decade-long downtrend in mineral revenues, only to face a deepening, structural decline in diamonds, set against climbing demands by the electorate for the fulfilment of his political manifesto.

Other blows followed, including the Trump tariffs, a foreign reserves crisis, liquidity crunch with associated Pula devaluation, as well as the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease and others.

As the economy has endured twin annual contractions for the first time in its history, cynicism has grown against the President’s attempts at clinching economic deals and his broader agenda for both recovery and transformation.

On social media, that unreliable but unavoidable barometer of public sentiment, many of Boko’s economic attempts have been met with pessimism at best and sceptical disparagement at worst, from some influential commentators.

In Maun, addressing an audience that included Abdulsalam Al-Murshidi, the president of the Oman Investment Authority which oversees the country’s $53 billion sovereign wealth fund, Boko felt vindication of his agenda.

“I certainly am having the time of my life, I must tell you and tell you openly, having a lot of fun dealing with these pressing, trenchant problems and challenges that strike at every step of advance,” he told guests at the groundbreaking ceremony. “Nothing could be more interesting to any leader than to receive tests of this nature and magnitude so that at some point when I walk away, I will say I did the very best for the country and the people. “That's all I'm about.”

According to public records, Boko and the Omanis first engaged last year in September or October, with the subsequent announcement of agreements on broad energy deals. At the time, Omani media reported that the two countries had agreed on a total of three gigawatts in energy and an unspecified fuel arrangement.

The 500MW solar plant not only boosts the contribution of renewables to the country’s energy mix, but will also help Botswana become a net exporter of not just electricity but clean power, into the Southern African Power Pool. The BESS allows some of the electricity generated to be stored and used when there is no sunshine or during evening and early morning peak hours.

The BESS of 500 MWh is equivalent to four hours of storage at a capacity of 125 MW, officials said on Thursday, providing strategic backup for the country in the event of a crisis.

The structure of the contract involves the Omanis designing, financing, building, owning, operating and maintaining the plant and BESS. Such structural arrangements involve the developer bearing the funding and other risks associated with the project, while the Botswana Power Corporation and other buyers enter into a Power Purchase Agreement for offtake.

In Oman earlier in the week, Al-Murshidi accompanied Boko throughout most of the engagements, particularly at the Sultanate’s royal palace where the high-level briefings and agreements were sealed.

The two countries also signed agreements for fuel storage development, which represents critically needed capacity for the country, as well as mineral exploration partnerships. Reports suggest that other arrangements were also struck that will be announced in the future.

The President hinted that beyond the energy and mineral deals, there was more to be gleaned from the relationship with Oman, whom he described as “best friends so far”.

On Thursday, however, it was clear that for Boko, the biggest win was in the acceleration of the project from initial discussions in October, to groundbreaking in April.

“The challenge with government, the challenge with our institutions, the challenge with all of us and our attitudes, is that everything begins and ends at the level of talk. “Government has been miserable. It has failed at execution, implementation. “There has always been an intractable tension, if not an outright contradiction, between what government has pronounced and what government has delivered. “I'm here to breach that chasm, to close that gap, to shut the gulf between intent and execution.”