Seretse challenges public sector to be proactive
Chakalisa Dube | Thursday September 15, 2016 15:15
Officially closing the three-day 14th National Business Conference (NBC) at the Adansonia Hotel on Tuesday, Seretse’s wish was to see all the government ministries reducing impediments to a conducive environment for doing business in Botswana.
“We apparently have good brains that incessantly formulate policies, but without proper implementation of these policies they amount to nothing,” said Seretse.
He added: “I don’t understand how it’s possible for people not to implement these good policies”.
He then told the conference about a need for a “revolutionary mindset” emphasising on a need to do something about the mindset of both the public and private sectors and encouraging delegates to move towards doing things better.
“We need to introspect very hard as a nation. We need to do something about this and identify what went wrong.”
Seretse encouraged the 380 delegates derived from the public, private sector and parastatals not to fear anything in copying what is good. “Learn from your past mistakes and most importantly we need to work closely together for the good of our nation.”
Worriedly, Seretse stated that the word ‘mindset’ has been mentioned in the last 14 conferences and asked rhetorically: “Do we have a different mindset from the people of Rwanda or anywhere else?”
He wondered why people could not adopt the change of mindset and do things differently.
He hailed President Ian Khama for officially opening the NBC and his commitment that underlies how government commits itself to the NBC. “What we want to do is to create all government doors to be the right doors and what we preach should be what we see,” he said.
He encouraged the private sector to play a critical role in growing the economy of the country.
He found it unfortunate that trust levels between the public and private sectors were still so prohibitive. “It’s unfortunate that the trust levels threaten to regress what we have done after so many years,” he regretted.
As for the issue of delays in issuance of work and resident permits, Seretse acknowledged that different sectors of the economy need the external expertise as even at his ministry, they are seized with the matter. “As government, we will continue to work with Business Botswana and the private sector to improve on the ease of doing business in the country,” he promised.
He noted that the NBC was sponsored by 25 different entities with 20 of them derived from parastatals and five from the private sector. “It doesn’t augur well for my ministry that the private sector does not raise its hand when it’s needed the most,” he complained.
The minister thanked Bankers Association of Botswana for its good gesture of doling out P1 million from its relief fund during the conference to remember the fallen heroes and heroines of Matsha College following a fatal accident.