All quiet about Vision 2016!
Michael Dingake | Tuesday July 14, 2015 15:06
“By the year 2016 Botswana will be an educated, informed nation. All people (Batswana) will be able to have good quality education … adapted to the needs of the country. By the year 2016, Botswana will be a prosperous, productive and innovative nation….By the year 2016 Botswana will be a compassionate and caring nation… Poverty will have been eradicated…….By the year 2016, Botswana will be a safe and secure nation…… Batswana will have confidence in law enforcement agencies….…By the year2016 Botswana will be an open, democratic and accountable nation….By the year 2016 Botswana will be a moral and tolerant nation. There will be high standards of personal morality, and tolerant social attitudes towards people of different cultures……By the year 2016, Botswana will be a united and proud nation sharing common ideals, goals and symbols…”
All the above are mouthwatering dishes to be had by any decent society. Not everything ideal for a good society is specifically mentioned, for instance, a corruption-free Botswana, isn’t mentioned. I don’t want to think it was deliberate; it probably was an oversight. Be that as it may, Botswana, from 2016 was to be almost a Garden of Eden, as conceived by the outgoing President Sir Ketumile Masire. Five months by the countdown, Vision 2016 is nowhere near the horizon. Honestly speaking, Vision 2016 is as dead as a dodo. We mourn the death of the Vision. But, was the Vision killed? Murdered by whom? Did it perish in a road accident? Where, when ? Did it die from terminal disease? Let’s stop speculating, to investigate.
The way I see it, Vision 2016 was orphaned at conception. When it was eventually born, it suffered malnutrition, undernourishment or both ‘terminal diseases.’ Vision 2016 truth be told was undermined, all the way by the very office that conceived it. Remember, it was placed under the poorly-resourced, under-qualified and from the look of things, unsupervised nursing care of the apparent playful Nurse, Vision 2016 Council. Who has an idea what this delinquent Nurse did and didn’t do to ensure healthy growth of infant, Vision 2016? It can be proved further, how the parent OP did its damnedst to see the infant never survived to see 2016 sunrise!
We saw how Office of the President , specifically the Presidential Task Group For a Long Term Vision of Botswana who authored Vision 2016 omitted specific mention of a corruption-free Botswana. Even the dead in their graves will volunteer evidence, that corruption is the deadliest evil hovering over the Botswana airspace. The court of the socio-politico-economic-cultural justice doesn’t have to subpoena witnesses dead or alive; potential witnesses will come voluntarily to give evidence on this heinous of the heinous crimes in Botswana. There is glaring evidence that government, specifically the OP, will put strong barricades to ensure that no corruption-buster is let in through the backdoor, to expose corruption filth. The Declaration of Assets, Liabilities…. law lies comatose on the President’s desk. Could it be the Attorney General, perhaps? This law is vital to tackle escalating corruption effectively; but no, the OP won’t allow it to happen! Even in his SONAS, HE won’t mention corruption in a short paragraph to prick the conscience of the Domkrag Parliamentary majority to discuss meaningfully.
Resistance to The Freedom of Information law has suffered the same fate, for the same reasons as well as the reason to deny the public the right to know . The OP has a case to answer on his alleged crime of undermining Vision 2016! He stands accused also of blocking to have a nation united in its diversity by refusing to accede to mother tongue instruction in districts where languages other than Setswana are spoken? Isn’t government rejection of community radios also enemy of a united nation and ipso facto Vision 16?
Readers can easily find a host of government deliberate and planned sabotage acts against her own projects.
Vision 2016 cannot be placed in the class of dreams of the utopianism of Robert Owen. Robert Owen was an ideologist who believed he could transform society by his method of voluntary cooperation to execute services and produce for own social benefit without depending on capitalists. Owen was an individual with limited resources and zero public influence, whereas Vision 2016 was a programme of a government with unlimited potential resources and enviable public influence.
Further one can detect rank opportunism in the adoption of Vision 2016 political dummy. Vision 2016 was a BD government panic reaction to the threat posed by the 1994 BNF general elections when it captured 13 parliamentary seats! Never believe President Masire was ‘Brave or Foolish?’ Masire was a Shrewd politician and an opportunistic. Again we can smell another Vision dummy following the collapse of the 2016 one, to be launched after the 2014 elections scare, generated by the good performance by the UDC . Beware of Domi once wounded! By the way the political intrigue of the Vision was inspired by Malaysia Vision 2020, which originally was the Year designated for Domi’s Vision. Vision 2020 became Vision 2016 on a brave wave, that the Vision would be more attractive if packaged with the 50th Independence anniversary. See where Domkrag comes from?