Elections upon us

Mmegi Editor | Friday October 11, 2019 11:23

There has been skilful avoidance in all political parties of the real issues facing Botswana today.  Namely the following:

A credible and an all-inclusive approach towards combating corruption in the country – we need a State Capture like enquiry of South Africa to be instituted.  Not the selectiveness approach of the DCEC and the DPP.  Let all corruption cards be put on the table, and let the nation deal with them.

Eliminating capital flight by ensuring that PPADB contracts have a home bias and a social impact deliverable

Mass job initiatives to eradicate poverty.  A huge facilities management program of government assets can create employment in attending to leaking water taps, painting, retiling, sanitation, landscaping, de-bushing and highway road maintenance. 

Citizen Empowerment, in particular indigenisation of our economy.  Giving Batswana Ba Sekei equal footing alongside other nationals a say in finance, banking and insurance, mining, petroleum in particular filling stations and construction.

The culture of rent seeking by some citizens thereby hampering our efforts to empower citizens and diversify the economy

Wealth redistribution – too much money, business and influence is in the hands of the Indian elite.  That is a reality that we can’t run away from

Tourism, in particular accessibility of this sector to all citizens

Powering up in the energy sector so as to have energy security, but also as a means to create employment

Decentralised growth thereby given each district autonomy to drive growth and investment in their respective territories

And revisit the question, is our education system up to scratch with the new world order? Auditing our curriculums especially at University of Botswana if they fit to job demand trend.  Changing the education system to have technical education at the same level as formal education.

Too much effort from government legal institutions in the past year has been made to spare senior government officials and political leaders for them being made accountable for some of the decisions they took. PR gimmicks were pursued so as to please the yearning public. 

Some constitutional subjects were made to go to court and answer for government transactions which they had no control or say.  Not only do the efforts continue to be absurd, but they are downright dangerous because they attempt to subject our legal system to downright mockery. 

It begs the question how is all this huge infrastructure money going to help the country apart from only leaving unpleasant in the eye old technology of roads.  Isn’t it obvious that there will be capital flight if all the contracts are given to the foreign companies? 

If you think we are being alarmist, Namibia went into recession for a solid three years because all infrastructure spent was given to foreign firms. The economy contracted because there was no circulation of money in the economy. The foreign companies repatriated all contract money back to their countries.

Today’s thought

“Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign”

– Woodrow Wilson