BDF budget military expenditure continues to swell
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday March 24, 2017 16:18
While there are issues of national priority like electricity, water, creation of employment for the youth and crime fighting, which have suffered because more funds have been directed towards acquiring BDF equipment over the years, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Shaw Kgathi once again this week, proposed a huge development budget for the BDF towards acquiring hardware and army equipment while the BPS remains under-resourced.
When presenting his ministerial budget proposal for 2017/18 to Parliament, Kgathi requested P5,006,298,770 for recurrent budget and P2,760,251,046 for development budget. The over P2.7 billion development budget is the third largest share of the country’s development budget. This however, is a decrease from last year’s P3.58 billion estimates.
He said most of the money in the development budget is mainly to cater for provision of defence equipment, communication equipment and infrastructure, in order to improve BDF’s defence capabilities.
“I request, P2,377,240,912 for the BDF. Out of this amount, One Billion, Six Hundred and Fourteen Million, Five Hundred and Eighty One Thousand, Two Hundred and Twenty Nine pula (P1, 614, 581,229) will cover defence equipment,” Kgathi said.
He stated that P626,399,170 will be shared between air assets, vehicles and communication equipment while only P136,260,513 has been budgeted for infrastructure projects.
The BDF expenditure has been criticised many times by opposition MPs who say it is not justified. Leader of Opposition, Duma Boko once said the continued high expenditure on military equipment by the Government is a potential threat to the current peace in the region.
The figures present a huge difference of appropriation between the BPS and the BDF development budget.
BPS has struggled with officers’ accommodation, transport and offices over the years, but Kgathi’s budget does not seem to prioritise them.
In the 2016/17 financial year, the BDF was allocated P3.2 billion as development budget to cover building projects, buying of hardware equipment and maintenance of existing infrastructure among other things while the police was allocated P289.8 million for construction of police facilities
When making submissions to Kgathi’s Ministry proposal, opposition Member of Parliament for Molepolole North, Mohammed Khan criticised the budget proposal saying the disparities in development budget estimates for the police and BDF are unreasonably huge. Khan said while he appreciates the need to acquire defence equipment and increase use of advanced technology, a huge chunk of the money should be diverted to the Botswana police to address issues of accommodation and officers' welfare.
“The amount of money for the development budget of the BDF as compared to the Botswana police is big. The disparity is huge because it is almost more than a billion and much of that money is spent on military hardware and equipment while infrastructure expenditure is low,” he said.
The BPS will get P312.9 million to undertake a number of developmental activities. This will include developing police facilities, fleet expansion and upgrading telecommunications equipment. The Department of Prison and Rehabilitation’s development budget is proposed at P26,771,400.
Khan lamented that over the years, Government has spent huge amounts of money on army equipment while the police remain greatly under-resourced. He said that their (police service) state of affairs is pathetic.
“If you take police stations at Bontleng and Mogoditshane, they are in a bad state that you would think it is not Botswana. I thought I was in (mentioning some backward, war torn country) when I was at these police stations. The police are motivated by the environment they work in,” he said.
Khan said that drug abuse, which is one of the most common causes of social ills, remains high because the police are not well-resourced to fight it. As it stands, Khan said, Government does not take care of the police. He challenged Kgathi to shift his priorities and focus on the welfare of the police officers.
Assistant Minister of Presidential affairs, Governance and Public Administration Thato Kwerepe supported Kgathi’s budget proposal. However, he said the police remain under-resourced and are faced with serious shortage of accommodation, offices and transport.
He said this has defeated their efforts to combat crime. He urged the Minister to consider appropriating more funds towards the police to build storage facilities for the police for safekeeping of evidence material confiscated from suspects.