The State of the Nation address - A reply 2

* ISAAC MABILETSA | Friday December 10, 2010 00:00

 

2003 HIES estimated that 23.5 percent (or 382 732) of Botswana's population is defined as poor because Botswana's PDL averaged more than a $1 per day or P104.00 per month.

Proportion of persons living below one dollar a day or ($32.74 per month) 

$32.74 = P104.10 per month was PDL figure in 2003

Purchaser Power Parity (PPP) = 165.4 was cost of living index in 2003

The BNF believes that this ever increasing poverty, ever increasing unemployment and the growing inequalities between the rich and the poor is the result of poor system of income distribution and poor poverty eradication programmes by the BDP government.

Successive BDP governments have for almost half a century come up with a variety of ineffective programmes such as ALDEP1, ALDEP2, ARAB, SMME, CEDA, NAMOLA LEUBA/IPELEGENG ISPAAD, LIMID etc.

The poverty situation is not as a result of Botswana being a poor country. Botswana is a middle income country with skewed income distribution.

BNF advocates the following measures for poverty eradication -Development of Producer Cooperatives covering Large Scale Poultry Meat Production Community Cooperatives, with a chicken processing plant to slaughter, package/dressing labeling and distribution to established markets such as large chain stores, government feeding institutions, hotels, restaurants, fast food chain stores etc. with proper high quality hygienic standards with halaal requirements complied with. Under this scenario, where cooperatives produce surplus chicken, you could alongside develop chicken meat processing plant for production of chicken sausages, polonies as some form of beneficiation. This scenario could apply to piggery, small stock the same way as with beef without necessarily having to invite private foreign capital to take business ventures that can easily be done by Batswana.

Large Scale Chicken Egg Production Community Cooperatives with a plant for grading, packaging, labeling and distribution to established markets such as chain stores, government feeding institutions, hotels, restaurants, fast food chains, etc..

With the above, you would also require community cooperatives for fodder/feed production to cover the needs of the chicken and small stock industry.

Furthermore, with the above scenario, you develop another cooperative factory for manufacturing of packaging material.

The key to success of economic diversification is in the type of education system the BNF has long advocated, i.e. for education with production and self reliance. This is the song BNF has long been advocating. This system would produce innovative citizen, equipped with good survival skills that would be easily turned into innovative opportunities.

The advantage of this cooperative concept would be skills transfer, training, better implementation of projects, management and monitoring systems

UnemploymentLabour Force Survey of 2005/2006 describes the unemployed persons as those individuals who did not do any work in the last 7 days either for payment in cash or in kind or who were not in self employment for profit or family gain.

The survey divides them into those who are actively seeking for work (Unemployment A) and those who have no taken any active steps to find work in the last 30 days (discouraged)

Access to creditThe BNF has noted that access to credit in Botswana for development projects and business ventures has major stumbling blocks from all credit and financial institutions and extremely difficult due a number of factors as highlighted below

National Development Bank although credited for recording good growth during the time of recession in (Para 56), it demands heavy collateral from budding citizen entrepreneurs of beyond 100 percent the amount of the loan which throws many young and aspiring business persons off because they cannot meet the high security demand imposed by NDB, let alone the exorbitant finance and interest charges associated with negotiating the credit with the bank.

Whereas with government empowerment schemes, the difficulty is with the complicated application forms to be filled, which are least understood by many young applicants coupled with low limits of amounts to be granted which turns all government empowerment initiatives into pet projects, low in technology, subsistent and prone to eminent failures on account of variety factors such as high utilities, land, inadequate cash-flow, transport and markets. They can hardly compete against well established foreign monopoly capitalists who control and dictate the market in Botswana.

Too many government initiatives such as EDD, ISPAAD, CEDA, LIMID and so on which are poorly coordinated and yet lack implementation capacity, and project supervision have not improved to deliver better services.

BNF policy on landThe BNF believes that land is one the most important factors and economic resource of production, alongside manpower, capital, and utilities. Easy access of land for purposes of residential, industrial, and commercial use should be considered a human right issue for our nationals. Therefore the BNF is strongly opposed to all forms of land repossession from the citizens because it works ultra vires the stated intention of His Excellency the President's idea of backyard gardens. Instead the BNF advocates for commission of enquiry to determine substantive reasons for Batswana's failures to develop their allocated plots.

Bedia under investigation (Sunday Standard (14 - 20 november 2010)The BNF welcomes and commend Botswana Export and Investment Authority (BEDIA) Board of Directors for their brave decision to institute a forensic investigation into the allegations of ethical impropriety at BEDIA as a result of newspaper allegations against some executive of BEDIA for stealing investor's ideas and using them as their own.

This clearly shows high ethical and moral standards of zero tolerance on the part of this learned board.

There is yet another similar public outcry levelled CEDA/CEDA Venture Capital for similar allegation against some executives. The outcry is about undue interference of CDEA Venture Capital management where CEO is the Chairman of each and every business venture that get financial assistance from the Venture Capital plus two members of his management team.

The condom company has been liquidated allegedly on account of interference from the CEDA Venture Capital management. I am informed a leather company is also near collapse interferences. What is the board of CEDA doing about it such corruption?

Why the Board of CEDA is not taking a similar action taken by BEDIA board of directors and institute forensic audit/investigation against such allegations. 

CEDA has been in operation for quite some time now. Is there any performance audit that has been conducted to determine and investigate why citizen companies financed under the scheme are struggling and collapsing?

Parliament needs to be briefed whether there are any cases of conflict of interest by CEDA officials and agents. A public forensic audit is necessary here too and the CEDA Board must set it as a matter of national importance because significant for public coffers are entrusted to CEDA.

Unfair business practicesThere is a continued general outcry of unfair business practices mainly against foreign owned companies particularly Chinese companies, related to low quality work standards in government funded projects, price fixing/manipulation & collusion. 

These concerns affect in particular the price of fuel, food, cement, steel products imported from the neighbouring countries and so on. There is general lamentation about high cost of project development such as road construction, offices, housing, which hamper government efforts to achieve Vision 2016 objectives. These improprieties are detrimental to growth of our SMME's. Citizen contractors have been rendered out of business by Chinese companies.

The BNF appreciates the contribution of Chinese in the economic development of Botswana but the soft loans they give with strings attached to it that projects financed under such soft loan schemes be undertaken by Chinese companies have literally killed the citizen construction companies. Citizen contractors have been rendered out of business and the majority have folded.

What is most disconcerting is that Chinese companies bring unskilled labour to work in their construction companies and there is no skills transfer to citizens.

Construction industry is nowadays characterised by ever increasing costs, and yet poor workmanship with quality standards highly compromised.

Allegations of kickbacks to some officials and politicians are made but without any form of mechanism to lodge such complaints against such unethical commercial and industrial malpractices. Here also we call upon government to institute a forensic investigation in order to safeguard the small emerging citizen owned industry.

African peer review mechanismThe New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is strategic framework setting out a vision for renewal of Africa, initiated by five heads of states from South Africa , Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt and AlgeriaIts founding document was formally adopted by 37th Summit of Organisation OF African Unity in July 2001 in Lusaka.

NEPAD is now a programme of African Union (AU) whose four primary objectives are to

* Eradicate poverty, * promote sustainable growth and development, * Integrate Africa in world economy & * Accelerate empowerment of women

In March 2003, the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementing Committee (HSGIC) meeting in Abuja, Nigeria adopted a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the APRM.

The MoU effectively operates as a treaty which came into effect immediately after Abuja, when six states agreed to be subject to its terms as of May 2007.The meeting agreed to the establishment of  APRM secretariat to be based in South Africa, and the appointment of seven person panel of eminent experts to oversee the conduct of the APRM process & ensure its integrity.

African Peer Review Mechanism is a democratic instrument designed to change the fortunes of Africa from a period of bad governance to a new era of good governance.

As an instrument, the African Peer Review Mechanism (ARPM) compels governments to voluntarily open up its political space to civil society to examine and advocate policy options aimed at remedying gaps and lapses in the governance.  Thirty countries have subscribed and committed to the APRM standards since its inception in 2003 excluding Botswana.

We in the opposition call upon Botswana to sign up and commit to the APRM standards. We are not convinced by the reasoning of our government, as an acclaimed pioneer of multi party democracy to remain outside the APRM. There is  much that our fellow African countries can learn from us, and much that we can benefit from them as well. A government whose foreign policy is predicated on political tolerance, democracy, good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law should have no inhibition in sharing its success with others, and in turn allowing them to monitor  if it adheres to its set standards. We therefore call on government to initiate a process to sign up to the APRM.

* Mabiletsa is the MP for Kgatleng East and the vice-president of the opposition Botswana National Front