Boko speaks on BMD, Sweden, and 2019
Bame Piet | Friday June 23, 2017 15:19
Mmegi: The Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) recently petitioned the Swedish Embassy in Botswana over the sale of Gripen fighter jets to Botswana Defence Force. Tell us more about this petition, whether the procurement was in any of the National Development Plans(NDP) 9, 10 or 11?
Boko: No it was not in any NDP. We have not yet gotten response from Swedish Embassy but we have received a lot of coverage from the Swedish media. I have done two interviews so far with the newspapers that have a huge circulation and the correct set of facts is beginning to filter into the Swedish society.
We also appreciate that for the Swedish government, their real aim is to sell their wares and benefit, and create more jobs or maintain jobs at the expense of our people. Our appeal to the Swedish is a moral one – we are saying to them, how do you make money from a people that is so poor and so deprived of resources, infrastructure development, and that is in such dire financial straits?
Why spend the country’s resources on a wasteful military expenditure?
Secondly, in order to go ahead with this deal, the Swedish government will have to pledge the Swedish taxpayer’s resources to guarantee the deal between their company SAAB and the Government of Botswana. It will have to have a guarantor and pay the money in the event the Government of Botswana defaults or cancels the procurement. The real danger for Sweden is this: the man with whom they are entering into this deal and who also stands to personally gain from it is leaving office in the next few months.
What if the next regime changes and says we are not going ahead with this? It may be the next successor regime or the government of 2019 and I have made it clear that we are not going to respect or uphold this deal. The Swedish government should appreciate this and go with their eyes open.
Q: Are you going to go to Sweden to hold a peaceful demonstration?
Boko: We are in contact with our Swedish friends and other institutions and we will explore every possible option that will take the message to the Swedish society.
Q: The government seems to be in a rigorous privatisation drive. The Botswana Meat Commission(BMC) is mentioned as the next target. Do you think the BMC should be be privatised?
Boko: First we need to understand the operations of BMC and the involvement of government in whatever mess we see in state enterprises. We should appreciate that the current MD of BMC, Dr Tombale was sent there with a specific mandate to turn it around. He went in and did his assessment and made recommendations that would achieve the purpose of turning it around. Those recommendations have not been acted upon. So BMC is paralysed because it cannot proceed with the recommendations. This raises a clear suspicion that in-fact government is involved in a conspiracy to paralyse these enterprises in order make a case for their privatisation.
The same goes with Air Botswana because government has consistently ensured that it does not operate efficiently and at a loss, to create a basis for privatisation. So it is a clear orchestrated effort by the current President to circumvent all available processes and impoverish the nation.
It is a violation of every rule in the book and a self-serving effort on his part because a company with which he has been associated with, Wilderness Safaris, whatever denials he has put forward, is the one he unashamedly issued a Cabinet Directive that thecompany be given Air Botswana - a culmination of an effort that began way back. There was an effort at some point to give Air Botswana to Ministry of Wildlife, so you can see the game about giving it to Wilderness Safaris has always been on the cards, they were just waiting for a perfect opportunity to effect it.
Q: But Wilderness has withdrawn their Expression of Interest in Air Botswana?
Boko: The withdrawal of Wilderness does not sanitise the impropriety that the government wants to perpetuate. Some reasons that have been suggested are that Wilderness itself did not comply with its own internal processes as a company listed in the Stock Exchange, so it’s a technical glitch on their part that resulted in the withdrawal not that they did not want to go ahead with the deal. So it does not absolve anyone of the players.
Even the marketing company at BMC is linked to the Khamas and the BMC management had taken a decision to fire that company when they were told to back off. This arrangement is bleeding BMC and benefitting some individuals. The same goes for the Gripen deal in which we are told some individuals stand to benefit P55 million including the President.
Q: The UDC is made up of BNF, BMD, BCP and others. The BMD is embroiled in serious factional wars. What is the UDC doing to help BMD go through this?
Boko: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Q: Why?
Boko: Because that’s the way it should be. It is good. In the lead up to the 2014 elections the BNF was embroiled in serious issues in relation to the BNF symbol, and whether the BNF should even be in the UDC or umbrella at all. We handled these issues and we ended up losing our vice president, secretary general, and several members of the executive. We were very clear we did not want any external interference in our internal affairs because we were confident that the membership of the BNF would resolve these issues. So the resilience of the BNF has to be tested time and time again and has faced the harshest and most extreme of tests.
Q: So what does this mean?
Boko: That every party within the UDC has a right to self-determination, it must determine its’ fate and its’ affairs in accordance with internal processes and constitution, without external interference.
Secondly, it is a political one – When you have issues and other people come from elsewhere and purport to understand the dynamics better than you, and prescribe or suggest solutions for you, such solutions are never durable. Only the BMD can attain a durable solution to what it is going through. It is a necessary part of the growth and development of a political party.
Q: Are you not concerned that this might get out of control and derail the opposition unity project?
Boko: I have full confidence in the ordinary membership of the BMD to resolve this, because I have seen it work – in the BNF and all over. Every organisation must resolve its own internal issues and that is why I have advised members of the BNF to stay away, not to stoke any fires within BMD, not to actively get involved in issues of BMD because if it was us in that position that’s what we would want. In politics you have to undergo through tests, test the characters of the leaders, test the characters of members of the organisation, and they should rise to the occasion and I’m confident they will.
Q: The judiciary has been faced with challenges and there is a perception that some members of the bench are pro-government.
Boko: There is that perception and I have said so many times from the days when I was president of the Law Society when I characterised some judges as ‘sing-along judges’ who sing along to a tune given to them or sung by the Executive. Judges who are apologetic and who defer to the executive. You can see in their judgements, they are pro-executive. There are such judges.
Q: Let us assume the UDC takes power in 2019, would you then consider firing those judges?
Boko: Of course, without any doubt. Remember: ‘Everything must justify its existence before the judgment seeks of reason, otherwise it must give up that existence’. Many of these institutions are going to have to be reconfigured. They will have to undergo rigorous audit and some of them will have to be dismantled because we cannot inherit these institutions as they stand and hope to transform the society. The DIS has to be dismantled in its entirety because it never had any direction so we must kill it and have something in its place if necessary.
The judiciary is a very important organ of the state, and if tarnished, captured or its integrity compromised, or there is a perception that it is has been captured, we will have to investigate deeper why that perception.
Q: Why would you want to replace them when you would be in power?
Boko: I am a lawyer, by training, habits and by practice. I want a judge who applies himself diligently to issues and renders justice. I don’t want to be favoured so I’m not going to be content that these judges favour government. If the government is wrong, in-fact government is almost always wrong on how it handles matters of its citizens. My ultimate loyalty is to what is just and proper.
Q: The independence of National Assembly
Boko: The role of an independent Parliament is to make laws for the good governance and for the peace of the country, so that all the three arms of government can cooperate as checks and balances. A Parliament that is in the pocket of the Judiciary does not fulfil its constitutional duties and obligations. It should uphold the Constitution, because a democracy cannot function when effectively it’s the executive that is calling the shots. We have a Parliament that is a flunky of the executive, and a Judiciary that is captured by the executive so we have a dictatorship.
Q: But the executive is a result of majority party in Parliament, why should the ruling party allow a few rebels to derail their mission.
Boko: You should appreciate that democracy is better understood from the perspective of the minority especially where the minority are the majority. Even if the BDP is a minority in opposition I will ensure that the Leader of Opposition is listened and heard and I will listen to them because it is the good of the people of the country.
Q: The relationship between labour movement and the government. What do you think is the solution to this standoff?
Boko: There are always solutions depending on whether people are willing to own up and face to the realities. The first thing that the government should do is to stop the amendment of the Trade and Disputes Amendment Bill which is going to be presented in July session which is going to bring worse things than what is prevailing.
The Bill seeks to further marginalise labour and create a situation where there is no collective bargaining, amounting to refusal to bargaining as prescribed by the ILO.
Wait until the Bill has been passed.
Q: There are reports that state security agents have infiltrated all political parties, media houses, law firms and Non-Governmental-Organisations among others. Is this true?
Boko: Yes it is true. We have said so many times that the DIS is a rogue institution that is used to stifle resources from government to cause mayhem in the lives of ordinary people by sniffing into their lives, listening unlawfully on their private conversations and interfering in their civil liberties and that they were involved in trying to assist the BDP to remain in power and our friends in the BDP at the time thought we were crazy. Now they are beginning to experience it themselves in the factions for instance, the use of state resources to campaign. Security apparatus have always been involved – from the days of Dr Koma – the Special branch, CID, what we suspect is they would soon start framing people, spreading malicious information about our cadres and everybody. But we are not fazed by their moves, all the evidence has come to the fore.
Q: Do you still maintain that there is a hit list somewhere at the government enclave?
Boko: Yes, before the killing of Kalafatis there were people who were on the police list to be eliminated. There was a man called Rock Steady who was informed that he was on the hit list and he handed himself to the police. What the government never anticipated was the reaction of the public following the Kalafatis killing. We warned the government that we would take them to The Hague to face prosecution for crimes against humanity. Of course the killers were tried in a choreographed prosecution, which unfortunately for the government did not bring an acquittal, hence they were pardoned within a short period of time.
Q: The French, the British and others in the developed world recently went to elections, but they did not use Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). Why is Botswana so keen to use EVMs?
Boko: Shocking, populations that are probably 20 times bigger than ours can run efficient elections without EVM. They are not even talking about these things in France, or UK. For a population of about 800,000 voters we spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s money on EVMs? There is something very sinister about these machines. They are the only hope for the BDP, they think. Elections are about the integrity of the electoral process. If people lose confidence in the integrity and credibility of elections then there would be chaos.
The peace and stability of this country is secured on the confidence of the people in the credibility of the electoral system and IEC is participating in the destruction of what little confidence was left.So don’t be surprised if there are no elections in 2019. But there will be a change of government with or without elections.
It would unpleasant and ruthless for the current regime, but if they want it to be a peaceful and tidy process they must restore the people’s faith in the electoral system and do away with the EVMs and ensure there is a fair and level playing field.