Masire bemoans decline in governance
Bame Piet | Tuesday October 6, 2015 12:02
Speaking from London, where he was a guest of honour at the launch, Masire said the decline could be confirmed by citizens who constantly complain about the level of secrecy in government, the manner in which service delivery had collapsed, and the level of reports of incidences of suspected corruption. “It is a true reflection of what we are seeing in our country,” he said. “It is a realisation that all is not well, reflecting the truth.”
Masire said that it was not an easy task to identify where Botswana went wrong but there were many contributing factors.
The report released yesterday shows that Botswana has dropped two points from 76.2 to 74.2 while it states that the rule of law is at 95.5 percent. The report shows that Botswana is third overall out of 54 African countries, but with a reduced score of 74.2 (down from 76.2 in 2014). The same modestly downward trend was apparent in the ratings of the other top countries, as well as the continent as a whole. Mauritius once more took the top overall position with a score of 79.9 (down from 81.7). The Mo-Ibrahim works with other monitoring organisations such as the United Nations, the African Union, Statistics Botswana and about 32 others. They gather information and analyse it to come up with the results.
Masire attributed some of the problems to poor coordination, such as reports that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship had a bad tendency of locking away potential investors, while on the other hand, ministers and senior government officials are globe trotting, looking or even inviting investors to come and set up in Botswana.
“An attempt was made to establish a One-Stop-Service Centre for investors, but we are not making any progress in attracting investors because of this problem,” he said.
The report gave lowest scores on infrastructure, although not specific which infrastructure they were referring to.
“Let us assume that they are referring to physical infrastructure such as roads – and it will be correct to say we are still behind. Without infrastructure you cannot take your farming produce or goods to the market if there are no roads,” he said.
However, he acknowledged that when Botswana got her independence 49 years ago there was absolutely nothing in the form of roads, but things have improved. The report scored 77.1 percent for “Participation”. Presumably participation in the day-to-day affairs of running the country. Masire said that it is a good indication that the level of awareness on governance issues has grown over the years.