Military should be more inclusive

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday February 14, 2017 11:03

The unfortunate incident also occurred at a time when media reports were awash with headlines that indicated government’s intention to spend a significant amount of pulas to procure military equipment, which has triggered mixed reactions from the public. Some of the arguments raised include a position that the country needs not to spend such amounts of money on military during peace time at home and in the region. Some arguments have been to the effect that the Government should focus on educating young Batswana for future economic prosperity of the country.

The air crash coincided with a strike by students of the University of Botswana who were expressing their discontent over delayed payment of their living allowances. We are of the view that, while military procurement is a highly sensitive area, that should not be used as a scapegoat for some individuals to loot the country’s resources in the name of ‘security reasons’.

Our military procurement processes should be reformed and modernised to be in line with our national aspirations such as transparency, zero tolerance for corruption and accountability. As we embark on this exercise in a few years to come, we should bear in mind the aforementioned cornerstones of a democratic country. This will dispel fears that there is a lot of corruption in military procurement.

There is no doubt that an aging fleet of army aircraft and hardware can expose the country to all sorts of security risks, and loss of lives, and as such it should be renewed all the time to cope with the ever increasing technological changes taking place in the world.

Organised criminals, poachers, and even our enemies are constantly upgrading their equipment, and so should we. Nonetheless, we have to upgrade our processes as well to ensure transparency and accountability. We are aware of incidents on the African continent where individuals got richer than the Government they are working for.

We are also aware of incidents at the BDF in which some orders went missing from the army warehouses and nobody was held accountable. We take this opportunity to send our condolences to the families of the crash victims who died in service of their country. Their names shall be remembered all the time as a call for reforms in army procurement processes.

Today’s thought

“The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society” 

–  Paddy Ashdown