Can Botswana export its labour again?

Richard Moleofe | Friday August 7, 2015 17:32

This country has been twisted in the last fifty years because at the time of independence we were largely a labour exporting country to South Africa and on the same vein it was a nett exporter of grain and other agricultural products. Of course we are still a major exporter of beef, a position which is ever challenged by emerging competitors such as  Zambia.

It seems Botswana keeps losing her position in a lot of areas and that includes the export of beef, a position that was never threatened by any country in Africa before. We contended for the number one position with countries such as Brazil, Argentina and the United States of America. It has become evidently clear that the ruling Botswana Democratic Party is determined to flush the beef industry down the drain hole.

The discovery of gold in South Africa’s Witwatersrand opened up the first ever opportunity for the then Bechuanaland population to export their labour. Batswana resisted this urge to provide labour for the mines because there were no pressing circumstances that could persuade them to come upon the South African labour bandwagon. The need for labour grew so rapidly because so many European investors were pouring into South Africa at alarming rates with the promise of laying their hands on the precious metal.

Until 1933, there were just a handful of migrant labourers from this country. The urge was increased dramatically by the first world recorded economic depression which Botswana could not escape. Furthermore, the country was buffeted by several natural disasters. This included the foot and mouth and mouth disease that was accompanied by a long spell of drought and famine.

The drought devastated the cattle population in the country and reduced it to a minimum. The drought that lasted for four years forced a paradigm shift in the way the then Botswana conducted herself in as far as labour relations were with her neighbours.

Because Botswana was a British protectorate, the colonial masters still demanded a hut tax from every man regardless of the prevailing economic conditions. The British slowly squeezed the able bodied population to head for the nearest train station in order to reach the goldfields of Johannesburg for jobs. On the other hand,  tribal coffers were slowly diminishing because of the drought. 

When the young men left for the mines, they left a serious void in the local market. The rains came again and there was not enough labour to till the land. Because at the time Botswana was a nett exporter of grain, the export of such was severely curtailed. Remember that at the time Botswana depended on life animal exports to South Africa. The labour gap that was created by the mass labour migration did not help the beef industry to recover.

 According to archival records, South Africa even decided to shut the import door to Botswana because of her lean cattle. It was a serious conundrum for this country because it was a loss on one side and a win on the other. Tshekedi Khama was one paramount chief who wanted a win-win situation.

He demanded that the tax revenue earned from the export of labour should be shared by the imperial government and the tribe. The construction of Moeng College was the result of regimental labour and the proceeds from migrant labour.

At the time of independence Botswana was one of the world’s poorest countries and her GDP entirely depended on migrant labour remittances. Thousands of young men and women were literally living across the border and their families depended so much on the revenues for their survival. The offices of Native Recruitment Company (NRC) or TEBA (Transvaal Employment Bureau for Africans) were common site in our towns and villages. The relics of these offices still exist and Botswana Defence Force has chosen to buy them and preserve them for history. At the moment the only operational TEBA office is found in Kgale near the capital city of Gaborone. It serves as a vivid reminder that the export of labour used to be big business in Botswana and can still be continued.

As a country we need to retrace our footsteps to yesteryear and learn from history. Botswana is still in a very good position to export labour to the outside world. This country has so much trained human resource that needs to be exploited in a positive way.

Over the years the government of Botswana has invested immensely in our education system. The one area which the Masire government was keen to do is the development of our human resources. The country has marched forward mainly on the strength of a trained human resource.

It seems we have now reached a saturation point where the government has run out of ideas on what they can do with the immense human resource in place. Because the government does not seem to find a way of balancing the equation of human resource and material resource which includes minerals and our livestock, they need to allow a free flow of labour export to all over the world.

In recent news articles, the government has bitterly complained about the number of doctors that have not returned from Ireland after training. Instead of dishing out such complaints, those in the seat of power should be praising those young people for marketing the name of our country abroad.

The mere fact that we have almost one hundred and fifty doctors in one European nation means they have become our marketing strategy for the tourism industry. Their patients dialogue with them daily and get educated about what the country has to offer.

The government of Botswana must come to the understanding that this country should canvas for foreign exchange in multiple ways rather than the export of diamonds and the Foreign Direct Investment that we are so much dying for.

By bringing foreigners to develop our country is the simplest way of mortgaging the future of our country without knowing it. On the other hand, as a country we seem to be pursuing an unwritten policy of mass deportations of the very foreigners we are hoping to create a future with in business.

A country such as Somalia and a majority of West African countries depend so much on remittances. In the case of Somalia, their economy almost came to a standstill when the United States halted all financial transfers for a period of two weeks in order to clear all paths of terrorism funding.

Botswana has invested heavily on education and there is no doubt on this matter. Several thousands are now roaming the streets with degrees because they cannot be absorbed by the labour market.

Besides the fact that most of these graduates are not equipped with the right skills that meet the demands of our labour market, we as a country are not doing enough to market these skills abroad. It is high time that Botswana should device a strategy for exporting skills. With the current exercise by government where investors are deported en mass, we can only achieve to effectively export jobs and not skills.

The government of Botswana should have a programme of training young people abroad and allowing them to remain in those countries if they choose to. The requirement should be that they pay their scholarships twice as much while working abroad.

At the end of it all, some unemployed youths should out of this idea set up Botswana Employment Bureau (BEB) where they can serve to export skills abroad of our borders. This is highly possible with the aid of the internet and when taking into account the fact that we are part of this global village we call earth.