What is up Matambo�s sleeve?
Dithapelo Keorapetse | Friday January 29, 2016 15:12
Parliament supposedly has to examine this budget carefully to determine how it will affect the country’s economy. The Minister of Finance and Development Planning Kenneth Matambo will present the budget speech on behalf of government and propose revenues and spending for the financial year 2016/2017 for Parliament to pass. So Monday the 1st of February is what is called Budget Day whereby the budget is presented in a usual ceremonial fashion.
Usually the Minister would start with the review of the events of the last financial year and update Parliament on both local and international financial outlook. It would appear that over the past years, especially under Matambo and President Khama, the speech is short and not prolonged and consequently there are usually questions about some missing details.
The Minister will, among other things, talk about revenues in terms of how much is expected to come from where and expenditure in terms of proposals of how much will be spent on what. He is expected to justify and or substantiate his proposals. But as said above there has been some sort of complacency in justification of expenditures because ours is a rubber-stamp legislature which seldom changes the proposals.
The budget speech will be followed by a debate which will last for about three weeks depending on the agenda of Parliament for the House to consider the financial proposals that the Minister has set out in his speech. These proposals are considered and debated with the Minister present to respond to arguments, or if need be. to amend proposals.
During the budget week, there is usually a
rush by both the print and broadcast media to report on budget items.
The speech is actually broadcast live by both private and state media. Following the budget, there are usually seminars held by private companies, trade unions and other organisations to further reflect on the budget and its implication on various sectors.
What will Matambo’s 2016 budget speech be like? It’s a tricky question. On the world economic outlook, Forbes Magazine’s Bill Conerly predicts for 2016-2017 “...economic growth comparable to recent year’s performance, but with a somewhat different texture. European countries will do a bit better, Asian countries just a hair worse, and natural resource-based economies much worse.”
The continued growth slowdown in emerging economies reflects lower commodity prices, rebalancing in China and economic distress related to geopolitical factors among other several factors, according to IMF. The international financial institution further expects the global economy to expand in 2016 by 3.6 percent, up from 3.1 percent growth last year with both advanced economies and emerging economies contributing to the improvement.
Our usual economic problems are poverty, unemployment and underemployment as well as wealth and income inequalities. The broader economy is unable to create jobs even for skilled people because it has remained not diversified; its mainstay has been mining generated revenue. Botswana citizens, especially native citizens, are disempowered compared to foreigners residing and doing business in the country or non native citizens or naturalised citizens.
They are under-represented in key sectors of the economy; they are expected to eat the crumbs from foreigners or white or Asian Batswana. On education, there are problems of dilapidated infrastructure and acute shortage of teaching materials and equipment as well as textbooks and stationery.
There’s shortage of teaching and support staff and accommodation for these workers. Hospitals and clinics are also in a dire state, none meets international standards and are not internationally acreditted.
There’s still shortage of doctors, specialists and even nurses and other health workers. In some instances, drugs are in short supply. Civil servants are generally unhappy because it’s been more than six years without salary increment, what they get is a paltry inflationary adjustment sometimes.
Other than the usual problems, the country is faced with water and electricity crisis. These problems are self-inflicted through dubious procurements in the construction of the North-South Water Carrier Project and Morupule B Power Plant among many other corrupt and unethical practices in this sector. Moreover, there has been a clear lack of foresight by those who have been in charge for many years.
How is it possible that this crisis couldn’t be predicted? Analysts and opposition politicians have long picked it - decades ago! Arguments about the country’s future power and water needs have always been presented as policy alternatives by the opposition the same way as arguments on mineral beneficiation.
However, these were contemptuously dismissed as wild dreams.
As a natural resource-based economy, Botswana is in trouble. Almost all our major minerals are in trouble; diamonds sales are down, copper and nickel prices have plummeted. Many jobs have been lost in the mining sector and many more are at risk.
BCL is in the midst of cash flow problems exacerbated by among other things low commodity prices. One expects Matambo to update the nation on how many jobs the economy has lost and created in the recent past, specifically in the last financial year.
Many people are overly optimistic about Economic Stimulus Programmes (ESP); that this would be presented by Matambo as a panacea for all the socio-economic ills.
In fact that is how it is being sold by those who believe in it. I t would be interesting to hear what Matambo has to say about the ESP, which he didn’t initiate and will not be managing.
This ESP is a fallacy, charade and a time-wasting rhetoric. Because there is nothing like ESP, the fraudsters at government enclave will resort to labelling everything and anything that was planned in terms of development projects as ESP. NDP 10 projects which are part of the extension passed by Parliament and NDP 11 projects are likely to be labelled ESP.
Whatever Matambo says, Batswana, especially young people, need jobs and economic empowerment, not handouts for vote buying. Jobs must be saved at BCL and elsewhere. People need better health and education facilities. Households and businesses need water and power.
Batswana need measurable or quantifiable deliverables and targets of how many jobs will be created and when and how many were lost and why.