Can All 2,300 Bots Millionaires Stand Up

Monitor Editor | Monday August 4, 2014 17:53

Although the report has not satisfied the curiosity of the readers by naming the 2,300 millionaires in Botswana, or the 1,600 reported in 2003, the revelation, although lacking in detail, is quite interesting. There is no doubt that the rich list, or the millionaires in any country is a piece of very interesting information for the public. Why Statistics Botswana has treated this important question as a trivial matter, boggles the mind indeed. A flourishing economy should and must create millionaires, most importantly citizen millionaires, and not just investor millionaires.

We cannot talk about the success of Botswana as an economy without asking and answering the question, how many millionaires has the economy created, and also related questions like: Is the list of millionaires increasing? Are they the same names appearing? Are they increasing their wealth, or they have remained stagnant? Or how were they affected by the economic slump of 2008? are we creating new millionaires, youths, women, and so fourth.  Such questions should be deemed normal in a transparent economy. They should be viewed as part of a transparent process.

In fact, even the ruling party, or the President of the day should be armed and ready with information anytime he is asked to tell how many millionaires our economy has created, or how many citizen millionaires we have. However such a question usually is viewed as an attack, as an attempt to expose the inefficiency of the so-called economic empowerment initiatives by government This question and its related questions should be asked by our Ministers, our President, they should demand evidence of wealth creation in our country.

Would publicising such information endanger the lives of the millionaires? Certainly not. It has not endangered millionaires in America, Europe, South Africa, or Kenya, where such reports are compiled annually for public consumption. It is high time the National Statistics Office embarks on an effort to publish the Botswana millionaires’ list. Or we ashamed that if such reports are published, they will reveal that most of the wealth is not in the hands of citizens? Even if it shows that, the existence of such reports would help us rectify such shortcomings and start on an empowerment drive to create our own citizen millionaires that we can be proud of.