Boko slams �populist� policies
Baboki Kayawe | Thursday February 4, 2016 16:07
Responding to the budget speech in Parliament yesterday, Boko said this state of affairs was manifested in greater unaccountability of resources, heightened corruption, impunity of those involved, as well as deterioration in government efficiency and effectiveness.
Boko cited the Vision 2016, poverty eradication framework and the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) as some of the heavily financed, populist, but weakly monitored policies.
“(Finance Minister Kenneth) Matambo should have provided a comprehensive and candid account of the country’s progress or lack of thereof, against the Vision 2016 targets,” he said.
“This is the time for government to account for progress or lack thereof against these goals. “Perhaps it is the gulf between the reality of the socioeconomic conditions in Botswana and what was envisaged by Vision 2016 that motivates the government to evade accounting for results.
“Vision 2016 obliged government to shepherd the nation towards full employment, zero poverty, good health and in summative terms, prosperity for all.
“The poverty framework is an expensive political adventure that consumes several hundreds of millions of Pula each year, with no tangible results to show,” Boko said.
He said under Matambo’s watch, the government had run a “slew” of costly initiatives for which performance criteria was not defined and monitoring and evaluation systems non-existent.
“There is evidence of wanton waste,” he said. “Beyond wasteful programmes, we have also witnessed gross mismanagement of mega projects and shocking indifference by this government to this extensive waste and corruption associated with these projects.”