Poor work ethic still haunts Botswana - report

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE
Staff Writer | Monday September 13, 2010 00:00

 

This was revealed at the launch of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 in Gaborone last week. According to the findings of a survey presented by Letsogile Batsetswe, a research consultant with Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC), poor work ethics tops the list of 15 factors identified as the most problematic for doing business in Botswana.

Respondents in the study were asked to select five most problematic factors from a list of 15, which included corruption, crime and theft, government instability/coups and tax regulations.  Poor work ethics came out at the top of the list after being identified by 17.4 percent of the respondents. Inadequately educated workforce and inefficient government bureaucracy followed at 13.0 percent and 12.9 percent respectively.

With Botswana still ranking high in the world peace index, it came as no surprise that government instability and coups came last at 0.8 percent. This was the second consecutive year poor work ethics topped the list for Botswana after the same dismal score for the factor in the 2009-2010 Report.

Despite rising inflation and the lasting ill effects of the global recession, access to financing and inflation were not identified among the most problematic factors. Access to financing was third on the list of factors in the 2009-2010 report at 13.6 percent and fourth in the 2010-2011 report at 12.8 percent. Inflation, on the other hand, was consistent at spot number seven among the 15 factors identified.

Batsetswe said the findings showed that Batswana still had a lot to do in terms of turning around their ethics towards work if their country should want to be one of the leading business centres in the region.

He said it was also disturbing to find an inadequately educated workforce still topping the 15 factors, although Government had invested heavily in education at all levels. Some of the participants at the launch said this might be a call for a review of national education structures that currently it places very little focus on relevant skills and is more theory-based.

They said while being a peaceful country gave Botswana a strong competitive advantage, the country was not leveraging off this status to lure more investors.

The study also revealed that the country's economy was still in transition from stage one, which is factor-driven, to stage two, which is efficiency-driven. Three key stages of development were identified as: factor-driven, efficiency-driven and innovation-driven. Last week's event was the fourth launch of the Global Competitiveness Report organised by BNPC in partnership with the World Economic Forum. This year's launch took place simultaneously with the global launch, which was held in the Chinese capital, Beijing.  The guest of honour at the local launch was Jonathan Oppenheimer of De Beers Consolidated Mines.