A peep into the BPF manifesto
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday August 16, 2019 15:27
FRANCISTOWN: After determining the constituencies to contest in, the BPF’s focus now is to put the final nails to its manifesto, which will officially be launched on September 7 at the old stadium in Francistown. The party’s top leadership will meet next Monday to polish the document and give it the green light.
Motlhabani described the draft manifesto seen by this publication as “work in progress” promising that by the launch it would be complete and ready to reach out to its intended masses.
He further described the manifesto as a breath of fresh air and promises futuristic sweeping transformation.
“Transformation that supports human achievement in all its facets. We want to be the generation that will inspire and rouse to action all patriots and citizens to believe in the greatness and potential of this country,” said an elated Motlhabani this week.
To him, the BPF comprises people from across the spectrum and the party has received applications for membership from former Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Botswana National front (BNF), Botswana Congress Party (BCP) and Alliance for Progressives (AP) members, the non-aligned as well as from former military officers.
It has attracted erstwhile top civil servants, such as former permanent secretary in the Ministry of health and Wellness Dr. Kolaatamo Malefho, amongst others.
In its manifesto, the party made sure to cater for this diversity of membership and therefore pledged to bring about change on the basis of its members’ values.
The values are: botho, unity, integrity, equality, justice, liberty, participatory democracy, peace, political, economic and societal progress and prosperity for all people of Botswana.
The BPF’s specific priority electoral promise is to strive to improve representation for women in all decision-making bodies of the country.
This process has already began as witnessed by the decision of the membership that recently elected a female vice president, Caroline Lesang, from Lobatse who won a highly competitive contest against Lazarus Lekgoanyana from Mahalapye.
BPF presents itself as the only party with a female secretary general, the vivacious and hardworking Roseline Pansirah-Matshome. Their membership will at all times have real power to formally exercise it as they did resoundingly in Palapye.
Some of the BPF’s high priority areas are to reduce rampant unemployment significantly by embarking on a massive infrastructure development. Rapid infrastructure development (petrol stations, tourism, transport) with the A1 made a full dual carriageway, grow the local light manufacturing sector through drawing on and investing sovereign and wealth funds locally in selected economic zones.
The BPF draft manifesto promises to liberalise power generation and distribution to allow private solar power farms to turn Botswana into a self-sufficient energy power exporter of electricity to the region. They promise to swiftly introduce a new curriculum to include coding, local languages as optional subjects across all public primary schools in the country to prepare the children for the future economy and employ even more teachers.
They pledged to increase old age pension and reduce the qualifying ages from the current 65 years to 62 years.
“We will unflinchingly defend the freedoms of faith-based groups and freedom of the press to foster mutual respect and their protection from an increasingly intolerant and encroaching government as witnessed by the intimidation of a Mmegi journalist Tsaone Basimanebotlhe by the Directorate on Intelligence and Security (DIS) recently.”
The BPF has further pledged to fight corruption in all its manifestations without discrimination on the basis of position and relationships with those in power. By protecting corrupt individuals based on position and relationships, the leadership is aiding and abetting public looting.
To curb this, the party will prefer all institutions of the State responsible for fighting corruption to report fully to Parliament and not the executive arm of government alone. It will initiate a constitutional review to bring about a proportional representation form of government amongst other reforms and empower Bogosi by raising the institutions’ dignity by fully resourcing Dikgosi and housing them under Office of the President to enhance their welfare, housing and transport.
It will also strive to ensure Botswana reaches self-sufficiency on basic commodities, vegetables and other foodstuffs like milk and most importantly make Botswana the best wildlife based tourism destination in Africa.
On another level, BPF promises to mobilise all patriotic and social democratic forces into a dynamic political force that will conscientise Botswana of the urgent need to graduate from a de facto one party-State which bodes badly for our country and its democracy to a quintessential wholesome democracy.
“We will commit and dedicate great efforts to quality education with strong emphasis on science and technology, environmental awareness and sustainable development goals with all patriotic sections of our population called upon to accept the challenge of fully transforming Botswana,” said Motlhabani borrowing from the draft manifesto.